An antique gas station pump is converted to provide a solar powered charging point in California.Photograph: Joseph DeSantis/Getty Images

The Guardian
L Hunter Lovins
April 29, 2015

At this year’s Paris climate summit we need to change the tired narrative that developing nations need to follow the dirty coal route to financial prosperity. The numbers increasingly come out in favour of first movers to renewables.

Silicon Valley start-ups are proud of their fast-paced culture and being first movers in creating new product categories and markets.

UN climate change summits are the opposite: they sit and discuss the risks of being first movers by transforming our energy systems to reduce emissions and protect our planet, but only the proverbial second mouse gets the cheese. Silicon Valley treasures those who take risks, fail fast and iterate – at this year’s Paris climate change summit we need to adopt more of this approach.

It’s been a long time in the making. Way back in August of 2013 Natural Capitalism Solutions won the contract to support the creation of the Lyons Environmental Sustainability Action Plan. The vision of the plan was to create a document that would help guide Lyons on a path toward a sustainable future. A future that harnesses the creativity of the dynamic population minimizes their impact on the environment, and spurs innovation.

Just after the project started, a devastating flood tore though Lyons and changed everything. It destroyed and damaged twenty percent of the housing stock, desolated the town’s parks, and displaced 200+ residents. But in true Lyons spirit the community rose up, rallied around those that needed help, and volunteered—over 500 people took part in the recovery planning process. Natural Capitalism was there every step of the way to help guide them through this process keeping resiliency and sustainability at the forefront of the process.

The result was a great Recovery Plan but more had to be done to help the town become as resilient as possible moving forward.

Natural Capitalism and those that initially supported the creation of the Sustainability Plan picked it back up and drove it forward. In order to move beyond recovery Lyons needed a comprehensive strategy to be more resilient and to reduce their impact on the environment. After all, the effects of climate change directly contribute to the soaring increase of natural disasters.

Through a series of guided stakeholder meetings and research into best practices of successful sustainable communities 130 recommendations were identified and refined down to the 60 that were most popular and impactful. The recommendations along with the full Sustainability Action Plan can be found at: www.lyonssustainability.com.

The path for Lyons to a sustainable future is clearer now, in large part because of Natural Capitalism’s work. We applaud the efforts and accomplishments of our neighbors seven miles to the West and look forward to continuing our work with them in implementing this ambitious undertaking.

Where did winter go? My friends in the Northeast are pleased to see it move off, but for me it’s been a blur.

My main priority has been to push forward the creation of a narrative for an economy in service to life—one that works for 100% of humanity, as Bucky Fuller put it.

This is something I cannot do alone, so I have been pulling together a coalition of leaders from across the globe. After pitching the idea at the Club of Rome, I was asked to serve on their Executive Committee and help make it one of their three core-action pillars.

We made progress in February when the DeTao Academy in China invited core members of the coalition to Shanghai, chaired by Dr Robert Costanza, who is the one who got me into all this in the first place. In this meeting on the Future New Economymy colleagues, John Fullerton of Capital Institute, on whose advisory Board I serve, and Dr Robert Eccles, now overseeing the creation of the new Sustainability Accounting Standards Board here in the US, discussed transforming finance, accounting and all aspects of our economy. Today John is releasing the full version of his seminal Regenerative Capitalism paper: livestream at 4:30pm EDT. Follow the #RegenerativeCapitalism hashtag on twitter for real-time updates.

In two weeks I’ll join John and some of the biggest brains I know on an island off Stockholm to try to set out a strategy for how we go about getting to this new economy.

We can do it. Never thought I’d say this, but we’re winning. Whether it’s the news on China’s coal imports in the first three months of 2015 being 42% below a year ago, or talks with utilities trying to figure how to move rapidly toward renewable solutions, I’m more encouraged than I’ve been in years. This is the message I’ll give for my dear friend Anne Butterfield’s “Soiree” this Saturday in Boulder. Join me for a great evening of conversation.

It’s also what I said in March at Maui’s conference on the Future Utility Customer, as I urged the state to commit to 100% renewable energy.And again last week at my dear friend Bob King’s SPEER Summit on energy efficiency in Texas, when I warned that the thinking of the last century is changing fast: Eon and RWE the two biggest, previously fossil-based utilities in Europe, watched profits fall last year respectively 60% and 91% as Germany shifts rapidly to renewable energy. Both Eon and RWE are now divesting of their fossil assets. Citi Group’s Energy Darwinism report warns of the “alarming fall in the price of solar.” Alarming to whom? And Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance wrote last week that Fossil fuel just lost the race against renewables, saying: “…there is going to be a substantial buildout of renewable energy that is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the buildout of coal and gas.” Congratulate yourselves, all of you have worked so long to bring about this transformation. It’s happening.

Then back to NY to teach at Bard—finishing my class in political economy and overseeing student capstone projects, several of which will truly make a difference. Any of you who ever thought about taking an MBA in sustainable management with me, we’re forming up our class for next fall. Contact Katie Van Sant: kvansant@bard.edu if you want to come play.

After a quick run to Morocco to keynote a conference for the King of Morocco on Doing Well and Doing Good, I’ll return to Colorado to keynote a summit on divesting from ownership of fossil fuels, and why, if you’ve just divested you should be moving your money from harm to healing (I have…have you?) I’m working on this with the new investment advisory service, Principium to build a set of portfolios that are genuinely fossil fuel free, focused on the best new economy companies as well as the blue-chips, like Unilever, that have embedded sustainability into the core of their operations.

So welcome to spring. That said, last week, on a five campus tour, crossing the Berkshires to keynote the “Strengthening Ties for Collective Impact: Campus Sustainability in the Northeast Region” conference at U Mass, it snowed on us. And tonight there’s 5 inches predicted for the ranch.

Not whining—we need the moisture. This was the hottest 3-month start of any year on record and will likely be the hottest year ever. As always, there’s more work to be done! And as always I cannot do it without you. Thanks for making it possible.

It’s flattering to be asked to be a poster child for a major international campaign.

The language was veiled but the implication clear: Would I help a big company undertake a campaign to end energy poverty? The client? Peabody Coal, the largest private-sector coal company in the world. I told the caller that I wanted nothing to do with his client or his campaign. The logic didn’t work.

Yes, energy poverty is real, and no, coal is not an answer to it.

I’ve been in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. When night falls in December, the temperature drops by 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit—it’s real dark, and real cold. I’ve spent nights with families who cook with wood, the women, especially, dying young from smoke.

Yes, energy poverty is real, and no, coal is not an answer to it.Tweet This Quote

But sorry, coal won’t help them. Yes, the Afghans could have burned coal in their homes, but when used domestically, coal is nasty. And Peabody has no interest in selling their product door-to-door. They dig big holes in the ground for one reason: to flow megatons of coal to powerplants—releasing gigatons of carbon into the air. From an environmental and health standpoint, mines are dangerous and polluting. In North Carolina, Tennessee and hundreds of other sites coal ash spills laced with heavy metals that cause cancer and neurological damage are polluting rivers, killing fish, and damaging communities. Big, coal-fired power plants are no longer an economical way to bring high quality life and energy services to poor people anywhere on the planet. Nothing about it makes sense.

Central-station power plants aren’t cheap. In states from Montana to Texas, utility regulators have denied permission for new ones because they cost more than wind. In places like India, where Enron flogged off power plants that no one in the US wanted, saddling the government with massive debt before going broke themselves. Someone has to pay for power from a plant before it’s a viable business. But poor people are poor. They can’t afford electricity that is priced high enough to pay off the capital cost of the plant. So they don’t. The plant either gets cancelled half way through, or only sells power to the urban elites. Either way, it’s no answer to energy poverty.

If it is a hoax, you’ll make a lot of money. If it’s the real and worsening catastropheclimate scientists believe it to be, you’ll still make a lot of money. Now let me present some facts to you on the financial case for getting out of fossil fuels (I am fine if you just view it as some bar talk).

There’s a strong and growing business case for climate protection. The 2014 report “Climate Action and Profitability” by the Carbon Disclosure Project showed how companies that integrate sustainability into their business strategies are outperforming companies who fail to show such leadership. Companies that are managing their carbon emissions and are planning for climate change enjoy 18% higher returns on their investment than companies that aren’t, and 67% higher than companies which refuse to disclose their emissions.

Something tells me, though, you are sentimental about your personal ownership in fossil fuels, right? If improving your company’s returns on investment does not interest you, how about the prospect of stranded assets? That’s investments that quickly turn out to be worth much less than expected.

In early 2012 Seeking Alpha, an energy industries financial advisory service with more than three million registered clients cautioned against panicking and selling coal stocks, concluding that even though Peabody Coal’s stock value had fallen 45%, it was nicely undervalued, and after all, such companies had always grown: “Currently, Peabody Energy’s share price is at just over $36 (£25), but I think it has the potential to hit the $45 barrier before the end of 2012 because its Australian interests are likely to be snapped up by China and Indian Steel companies”, the advisors wrote. Seems like a strong argument for staying invested in coal, doesn’t it?

Whether they ultimately divest or not, colleges have a great option: they can invest in themselves. Last year, Swarthmore’s board of managers rejected divestment, for example, but committed millions of dollars to enhancing energy efficiency at the college.

The changing face of prosperity – what do possessions really do for us?Photograph: Radius Images/Alamy

A shift to the sharing economy, millennials shunning private car and home ownership, a saturation of consumerism – is a new economic narrative emerging?

Prosperity. Every segment of society seeks it, but ask what it means or how to get it and the answers are not always clear.

Do possessions equal prosperity? The mavens of Madison Avenue tell us: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” So we measure self-worth by what we buy, going deeper in debt to project the perception of plenitude.

A New Yorker cartoon portrays a woman in an elegant boutique asking whether they have something to, “Fill that dark empty space in my soul.” As Dana Meadows observed, we seek to meet non-material needs with things. It’ll never work. Worse, we’ve allowed the ad industry to induce the impression that in the absence of whatever they’re selling, we’re inadequate.

To play this game, you need money. The siren song is work harder, and you too, can join the moneyed class. It’s seductive: we all know someone who did win: the entrepreneur who struck it rich, hard-working immigrants who scrimped to put the kids through college, clawing their way to the middle class.

But Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century shows the system is rigged. Working harder won’t ensure prosperity. Without transformation of the financial system, the neoliberal ideology that has imposed austerity around the planet is punishing everyone who is not an owner of capital.

My internship at Nat Cap was the first step in turning a passion for environmental stewardship into a new career. The very talented Nat Cap staff worked side by side with interns, treating us as colleagues, to produce their research and many consulting and education projects. I’ve often referred to the interns as a machine; they are an integral part of the engine that is Natural Capitalism Solutions. Being an intern from spring through fall, meant an enormously enriching experience, working with many different interns, all from diverse backgrounds. I was also involved with Hunter’s first Sustainability Leadership and Implementation Course at Denver University, which provided further experiential learning and indoctrination on the business case for sustainability. What this experience grew into was the inspiration to turn an idea into a reality. Upon leaving Nat Cap I launched my business, Commute Matters.

The business case for sustainability, so thoroughly ingrained in Nat Cap’s mission, is now the primary tenet on which Commute Matters markets its Employee Commute Optimization System. The seed was planted many years ago when I commuted from Denver to Boulder, always thinking “someone on the other side of the highway is doing the same job in Denver and making the opposite commute; couldn’t we just swap jobs?” For years I thought about this. While at Nat Cap I started talking about the idea and with the encouragement I received, finally started doing something about it. I took an MBA class – Business Planning for Social Entrepreneurs, and there I realized where job swapping was both possible and made the greatest impact: in chain stores, in retail, food service, banking and hospitality, where the majority of the employees drive past two or three company stores getting to the one where they work. By relocating workers to closer stores, the workers save time, money, and stress. They arrive more often, on time, and happier. And they quit less, saving the company substantially on turnover costs. Best of all, the community sees less traffic and emissions, which leads to a better quality of life. Government has worked long and hard on solutions to traffic congestion and environmental issues, yet these problems persist. Using commute optimization puts control in the hands of business to solve not only a major talent management issue but to take a leading role in solving major transportation and environmental issues. One retailer in a city can reduce traffic by 6 million miles and CO2 by 7 million lbs in just one year. What if they all did? That’s the mission we’re on.

I’m forever grateful for the great experience and education, incredible colleagues, and unforgettable inspiration I developed through my work with Natural Capitalism Solutions. Thank You!

Hunter Lovins is on a mission, writes Sophie Morlin-Yron: to put the transformational technologies we already have to work for the benefit of people and business – and to re-create the economy so it’s no longer a machine for polluting the planet and devouring natural resources, but a mechanism for building and sustaining natural and human capital.

“What do you want your future to be? We have all the technologies to solve all the problems facing us. We can build a better world for us, for all of life on the planet.”

American author, economist, lawyer and environmentalist Hunter Lovins lives on a ranch in Colorado, north of Denver.

Here, she keeps horses which she buys at so-called“killer sales” - where people sell unwanted horses that would otherwise face slaughter. These are then rehabilitated at her ranch and eventually rehomed.

She speaks fondly of life on the ranch, the local community and rural activities such as riding, attending pie baking contests and celebrating the annual upcoming Hay Day.

But truth be told, Lovins spends most of her time on the road, traveling on her one-woman mission to make the world a better place. And her day-to-day reality is far from mowing hay and ‘angling horses’, she complains: “I live on a god damn airplane!”

Lovins has been in sustainability since 1972. She has won numerous awards, such as the European Sustainability Pioneer award and the Right Livelihood Award.

President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions - a non-profit which educates decision makers on the benefits of green business and a regenerative economy. She is also a professor of Sustainable Business and has worked with the UN, governments and businesses in over 30 countries.

It was through working on a project called Green Afghanistan that she ended up with a membership at the prestigious Frontline Club in Paddington, London. And it is here, at Frontline, that I manage to get a piece of her time before she sets off for Heathrow, and her next airplane journey. Read more ›

Can grazing cows save the world?Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The Guardian
L. Hunter Lovins
19 August 2014

L Hunter Lovins: George Monbiot’s recent criticism of Allan Savory’s theory that grazing livestock can reverse climate change ignores evidence that it’s already experiencing success inn his recent interview with Allan Savory, the high profile biologist and farmer who argues that properly managing grazing animals can counter climate chaos, George Monbiot reasonably asks for proof. Where I believe he strays into the unreasonable, is in asserting that there is none.

Savory’s argument, which counters popular conceptions, is that more livestock rather than fewer can help save the planet through a concept he calls “holistic management.” In brief, he contends that grazing livestock can reverse desertification and restore carbon to the soil, enhancing its biodiversity and countering climate change. Monbiot claims that this approach doesn’t work and in fact does more harm than good. But his assertions skip over the science and on the ground evidence that say otherwise.

Richard Teague, a range scientist from Texas A&M University, presented in favour of Savory’s theory at the recent Putting Grasslands to Work conference in London. Teague’s research is finding significant soil carbon sequestration from holistic range management practices.

Newsweek’s Green Business Icon talks of business opportunities in climate change.

JAMAICA’S private sector was yesterday warned not to allow coal-fired plants into the country’s energy mix as they are financially and environmentally unsustainable.

Addressing the Climate Change Learning Conference for the Private Sector at the Pegasus Hotel, president of Natural Capitalism Solutions L Hunter Lovins said of all the fossil fuels, coal, which is being proposed for the trans-shipment port on Goat Islands, as well as for the mothballed bauxite plants in Manchester and St Elizabeth, emits the most carbon — the primary culprit in climate change — and carries a heavy price tag in terms of construction.

“Coal as a future? No!” she said.

“Coal does not have a future. It should absolutely not be thought out for Jamaica. Why on earth would you accept any technology that you do not have here in Jamaica?”

“This is an incredibly energy-rich country,” she continued, highlighting Jamaica’s abundance of sun, wind and water. “The notion that you are beggaring your economy to buy imported oil [and] kill the climate to worsen the storms that are impacting your people is crazy.”

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” -Steve Jobs

People often think that it takes extraordinary genius, luck, or serendipity to make big things happen. That corporations are untouchable behemoths that rule the world. I had grown up with the preconception that only the ‘big’ could produce big. At Natural Capitalism Solutions, I’ve seen the truth first hand: that businesses everywhere run off of the work of individuals, whose passion and dedication can make change and can influence the world. It is real people, not governments and corporations, who build the things that make up the world around us. While interning at NCS, I felt like a contributing member of a small team making an indisputably large impact. It has always been a dream of mine to make a dent in this world for the better and this experience has made me feel that not only is this dream worth striving for, but it is actually very attainable –an exciting paradigm shift that already changed my approach to work and life. Read more ›

The global economy is on the edge with 85 people having as much wealth as 3.5bn of the world’s poorest. We need a new story of an economy that doesn’t trash the planet

Humanity is learning the hard way. We are exceeding the planetary boundaries that define the edge of our planet’s capacity to support us. At the same time, we remain below the edge of what people need to live within a just, safe, and prosperous operating space, what Kate Raworth has called doughnut economics.

The global economy stands on the precipice, with 85 individuals having as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion of the world’s poorest. This leaves most of us living on a precarious edge of one form or another, as the “tower economy” accretes to itself ever-greater wealth. Read more ›

Huffington Post
28 April 2014The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to rule soon on whether a state can make it illegal for a political candidate to lie about his or her opponent in an election campaign.

Expect the Court to side with the old saw that “all’s fair in love and war.” After all, this is the Court whose majority ruled that dark money is free speech, corporations are people, and the Constitution is a flak vest for pretenders who lie about being decorated war heroes.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if political candidates were held accountable for lies, intentional distortions, character assassination and over-the-line hyperbole? And wouldn’t it be interesting if entire industries were held to the same higher standard?

For example, the coal industry and its supporters accuse the Obama administration of waging a war on coal. They cite EPA’s intention to limit climate-altering carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. But as I’ve written before, the administration is not warring against coal; it’s warring against global climate change. It would be closer to the truth to accuse the coal industry of warring against our children’s future.

Another example of corporate distortion is coming from the nuclear power industry in its new Nuclear Matters campaign. The campaign’s leaders, who include several former public officials, are promoting nuclear energy as critical to cutting the nation’s carbon emissions. Read more ›

I know the questions our children will ask
When they stop long enough to think of the past.
Was there ever a summer when heat didn’t kill,
ever a harvest when the grain bins were filled?

Was there ever a time when we didn’t fear rain,
When the skies were not angry and the rivers were tame?
Was there ever a year when no species were lost
to what people did without measuring the cost?

Was there ever a time when nature was kind,
when we thought of her warmly as a friend of mankind?
Did the breezes blow lightly, did spring come with grace,
did the snow ever fall at a far gentler pace?

Was there plenty of water? Was it cool, clean and clear?
Did you know that one day it might not be here?
Was our soil ever fertile rather than spent?
Were our forests majestic, were people content?

Did you know that despite all the world’s demarcations
that we were much more than separate nations?
Did you know you were linked to every thing else,
profoundly connected to more than your self?

Did you ever acknowledge the realization
that God made us stewards, not kings of creation?
Did you ever imagine the world you could build
beyond making sure that your gas tanks were filled?

Did you think of the health of our generation
or only of pleasure and gratification?
Did you know of the heights that humans could reach
when “better angels” were more than just figures of speech?

Did you work for a time there would be no more war,
no cruelty, bloodshed or hopelessly poor?
Did you work for a world that was better than yours
where life had more meaning than settling scores?

Did you reach out to save it as it slipped away,
or ignore all the changes that were underway?
Did you ever regret the pain you begat?
Did you realize that you all were better than that?

Did you think of your duty to all of the years
our forefathers sacrificed blood, sweat and tears
to build a new nation and work to conceive
a great civilization where people agreed
that we all have a contract– a duty to leave
a future the Founders most surely believed
was within our power and will to achieve?

Our scientists told us what we had to know:
We were crossing a line where we shouldn’t go.
Did you fight the deniers who said at the brink,
“You can lead us to science, but you can’t make us think.”

Did you hope that our God would show up to save us
when you failed to use the brains that he gave us?
Now the world you enjoyed is out of our reach.
We’ve slipped down humanity’s hierarchy of needs.

As Fuller once said with the greatest conviction,
We are here as world builders, not as its victims.
But we can’t be builders if we’re nonchalant;
We have to commit to the future we want.

Your lifestyles and worldview exacted great cost
but we’ll do all we can to regain what was lost.
The torch that you passed us had nearly gone out.
We’ll light it again so our kids have no doubt
that we loved them, our duty to them carried out.

In 1934 when the FBI asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he reportedly answered, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Today, if you ask an investor in the fossil energy sector to be candid about why he is robbing our children’s future, he would give the same response: That’s where the money is.

Whether we’re talking about government subsidies, or buying stock, or wildcatting for oil, or shoveling coal, or destroying a wetland for economic development, we are investing in things that degrade the future, squander natural capital, and spend our children’s inheritance.

That needs to change not only for moral reasons, but also because investments in things that hurt us tend to become bad bets. The increasing risk of investing in companies that help create climate change or whose profits are threatened by it is the reason the Securities and Exchange Commission wants companies to publicly report their climate risks each year and why most companies apparently don’t want to. Read more ›

If you thought that the climate action plan President Obama announced last June contained a complete global warming agenda for the next three years, think again. There are few more things he can do.

Two hundred more things, to be precise.

In a Washington D.C. news conference, former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter released a long menu of new ideas for the President’s consideration. The ideas, collected in a report called Powering Forward, were presented to the White House last week. They were developed by Ritter’s Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University (CNEE) in consultations with more than 100 U.S. thought leaders over the last 10 months. (Full disclosure: I work for the Center.)

The President’s in-basket is filled with recommendations from NGOs and interest groups, particularly just before his annual State of the Union address, but in this case a meeting with Obama inspired the idea-gathering exercise. Last March, Ritter was one of a group of 14 people, mostly corporate CEOs, invited to the White House to discuss energy policy with the President and his team.

Ritter was called out of the room for a few minutes. When he came back, the other members of the group had “elected” him to lead the effort to engage experts in five areas: energy efficiency, renewable energy financing, new business models for utilities, responsible natural gas production, and alternative fuels and vehicles.

After months of research, roundtables and peer reviews involving experts and corporate leaders, the result is more than 200 recommendations the Administration could implement without further action by Congress. Read more ›

President Obama’s designation of five localities as Promise Zones is the latest in a long history of efforts by his predecessors to wage the war on poverty in communities where the war is needed most.

It’s a good idea, if it is done well. It would make little sense to put new financial resources into the same strategies and power structures that have created and perpetuated the poverty that exists in parts of the United States today.

The Promise Zone initiative is starting small. Federal resources permitting, it has the potential to be a productive new campaign in the war on poverty that President Lyndon Johnson declared a half-century ago. It is reminiscent of the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Zone programs under the Clinton Administration. Then as now, the idea was to give special tax breaks and treatment in grant competitions to neighborhoods, communities and regions that are struggling economically and socially.

Today, however, there are new factors in the mix. One is global warming. Its impacts often stress the communities and people least able to cope because they lack resources. The resources in insufficient supply are not only money, but also “natural capital” including important ecosystem services that have disappeared because of environmental degradation. Those services range from flood control to water purification. One way to address poverty is to help communities restore their natural capital. Read more ›

That’s just wrong. More than 50 studies (PDF) from the likes of those wild-eyed environmentalists at Goldman Sachs show that the companies that are the leaders in environment, social and good governance policies are financially outperforming their less sustainable peers. Sustainability is better business –and we can prove it.

Richard Smith in “Green Capitalism: The God That Failed”, gets it even more wrong. He asserts: “The results are in: no amount of ‘green capitalism’ will be able to ensure the profound changes we must urgently make to prevent the collapse of civilisation from the catastrophic impacts of global warming.” He calls for “abolition of capitalist private property in the means of production and the institution of collective bottom-up democratic control over the economy and society.” Read more ›

Climate change is the greatest threat our planet has ever faced – and we need to take action now to prevent the situation from getting any worse. But will there ever be enough political will to put the policies in place that are needed to save the future of the only planet we can call home? We’ll ask William Becker – Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project – in tonight’s special Conversations with Great Minds

Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success. Countries should act now to embrace new metrics, urge Robert Costanza and colleagues.
GDP measures mainly market transactions. It ignores social costs, environmental impacts and income inequality. If a business used GDP-style accounting, it would aim to maximize gross revenue — even at the expense of profitability, efficiency, sustainability or flexibility. That is hardly smart or sustainable (think Enron). Yet since the end of the Second World War, promoting GDP growth has remained the primary national policy goal in almost every country1.

Meanwhile, researchers have become much better at measuring what actually does make life worthwhile. The environmental and social effects of GDP growth can be estimated, as can the effects of income inequality2. The psychology of human well-being can now be surveyed comprehensively and quantitatively3, 4. A plethora of experiments has produced alternative measures of progress (see Supplementary Information). Read more ›

AVON — The 12th annual High Country Speaker Series, a partnership between the Eagle Valley Library District and Walking Mountains Science Center, begins Tuesday evening with a renowned global voice in sustainable environmental practices, Hunter Lovins. This winter’s theme is “Sustainability: Adapting today to preserve tomorrow.” A worldwide recognized leader in helping companies and communities profit from more sustainable practices, Lovins is the ideal person to kick off the series. She will speak Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon.

The international community is on a runaway coal train, the train is speeding toward a terrible wreck, and there appears to be no way to stop it. That, minus the metaphor, is the picture painted by the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It predicts that the use of coal – the dirtiest of the fuels causing global warming – will continue growing at a “relentless pace” in the years ahead.

Absent some technology that does not yet exist at the level of maturity and scale to slow the train, it follows that carbon emissions will grow relentlessly too and so will the impacts of global climate change.

On top of the physical damage, there will be some substantial economic damage farther down the track, a topic not addressed in the IEA report. Many of the countries important to the future of the global economy are at highest risk from climate change. Many of same countries are producing, importing, exporting and burning more coal, increasing their risk even more. The irony is that they are burning coal for economic development and in doing so, they are committing econocide by carbon. Unfortunately, in our shared atmosphere and global economy we all are along for the ride. Read more ›

The Boabab tree has become a symbol of Nelson Mandela’s legacy(Photo: Cat Jaffee).

We are facing one of those rare moments in time when a true “giant of history” transitions from living to legacy.

As the memorial services for Nelson Mandela linger in our memories, the task of ensuring that his legacy endures is now our responsibility. We have spent days pouring over news release headlines, announcements, photos, and speeches of Mandela’s life. We have devoured magazine profiles full of quotes, labels, and taglines to find the words that will consummate his legacy. And now while we mourn, revere, and thank, we are left with huge questions – what is the legacy we will choose to remember this man by? And what do we do now? Read more ›

by L. Hunter Lovins
17 October 2013
Commissioned by the United Nations

The Problems

The global economy rests on a knife-edge. It is based on unsustainable assumptions and business practices that are driving societies and ecosystems into successive collapses. There are many palliative “fixes” that can prop the system up – but only for a time.

What is needed is a new development paradigm, one based on recognizing that the economy depends wholly on preserving healthy ecosystems. The current paradigm, based on what Randy Hayes calls Cheater Capitalism,[i] in which individuals are told to make their own way in a dog-eat-dog “free” market, while incumbent technologies and corporate profits are subsidized, losses are socialized, the commons are privatized and the too-big-to-fail are bailed out. Yet we believe the shared story that in capitalism the smartest win, everyone has equal opportunity to get rich, techno-geniuses like Bill Gates have the money, so they will save the world. The unspoken option is to stand with out hands out.[ii]

The King of Bhutan recently convened an International Expert Working Group to set forth a New Development Paradigm designed to lift society to a new level of sustainable well-being. Pictured here are children in Thimpu, Bhutan.Photo Credit: Ida Kubiszewski/Solutions

Conscious that unsustainable patterns of production and consumption can impede sustainable development, and recognizing the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and wellbeing of all peoples.
—UnitedNations General Assembly,Resolution 65/309, 2011

In June 2012, the latest in a series of United Nations conferences on sustainable development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this one called “The Future We Want.” As the most recent opportunity to present an equitable solution to climate change and other environmental problems, the declaration that arose from Rio left many cold. It did not go far enough in proposing alternatives that adequately recognized growing global challenges.

In response to the Rio meeting, the UN and emerging groups of academics, policy makers, business people, and others have begun to working on a broader, more wide-ranging vision for what a sustainable and desirable future could be. One such group was convened by the King of Bhutan, and met in January, 2013 in the country’s capital, Thimpu, with the goal of envisioning a future based on happiness, well-being, and an understanding of mankind’s interdependent relationship with nature. One subset of this group produced the following document to outline some of the features and policies of this new paradigm. The document is written somewhat in the style of the Rio declaration—a list of points under various headings—to highlight the differences with that document. Read more ›

The latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tell us what we’ve been told several times before, except with a greater degree of certainty. Climate change is real and we had better stop burning carbon soon if we want to avoid a future in which we suffer in biblical proportions.

The IPCC is like a doctor who gives us a checkup every few years. Time after time, the diagnosis is the same except more certain and the prognosis is the same except more urgent. We are the patients who either refuse to believe it, or believe it and refuse to stop the behavior that makes us sick. The majority of us, it seems, would rather listen to beer commercials than the news because the news is getting pretty bad.

The latest report from this largest of all scientific enterprises is said to be conservative in its findings. Yet, its conclusions are not reassuring. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the scientists report, “and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.” To be more specific:

• “The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.”

• “Human influence on the climate system is clear… Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes… It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” Read more ›

Been thinking of late about dying. Nope, not personally, least I surely hope not. When folks ask,“How’s life?” my glib answer is, “Believe it beats the alternatives.” Which, of course is a testable hypothesis we’ll all get to try. Death is an integral part of life. And entrepreneuring.

One of my favorite entrepreneurs once told me that running a start-up means that you are always about to go out of business. His company sits at the intersection of public policy, activism, science and the best shot at success that VC money can buy. Three times in the company’s life distant politicians made a decision. Decide one way and his company’s gone. He’s still there, and with a bit more luck will shortly be making a big difference in the battle to stem climate change, as well as being very wealthy indeed.

My thoughts turn this way in part because I’m at Harmony Hill, a spectacularly beautiful retreat on the Hood Canal in Western Washington catering primarily to people dying of cancer. The bricks in the main walk up to the great hall are inscribed in memory of those who didn’t make it. A grape arbor hangs with copper strips engraved with names of the dead. Ghosts swirl round like the sea fog that wreathes the Olympic Range each evening.

They’ve little to say to me. We’re celebrating and strategizing on life and new beginnings: on “changing business for good” at a faculty retreat for Bainbridge Graduate School (BGI). The entrepreneurial business school, was founded by Libba and Gifford Pinchot, a pair ofentrepreneurs who used the profits from a successful start-up to transform business education, placing sustainability at the heart of every class, and pioneering the way for now hundreds of business schools who claim to be doing the same. Read more ›

When capitalism hit the fan in 2008, it left a lot of us thinking that there must be a better way—one that takes into account not only financial success but human values that benefit and safeguard our communities and the environment. What you may not know is that this better way is already here.

Author, economist, professor and attorney Hunter Lovins has been practicing and advocating a more harmonious version of capitalism for decades. “I think I helped invent the field,” Lovins told Organic Connections when asked how she got into sustainable economics. “The word sustainability entered the English language the year I graduated college. I had planted a tree two years before for the first Earth Day and had been working on these issues, starting in the fifties with fair housing, and the sixties with civil rights and the environmental movement. I worked with Dave Brower [first executive director of the Sierra Club and founder of Earth Island Institute] in 1968. So this is not something that I’ve just come to.”

Lovins’ seminal work, Natural Capitalism, was published all the way back in 1999. Her movement under the same name, along with her foundation, Natural Capital Solutions, has been garnering major attention and interest from both business and government sectors ever since. Over 13 years, 14 books, dozens of major television and film appearances, and countless speaking engagements later, Lovins still travels the world consulting heads of state, the United Nations and major corporate CEOs, as well as speaking and teaching at universities. At the time we interviewed her, she had just visited ten cities in the previous five days, and was shortly to be going right back out again from her home ranch in Colorado.

Coming to Fruition

“What we’ve sought to do is to put forth the argument that there is a business case for behaving more sustainably,” Lovins said. “Just over a decade later these principles are coming to be accepted, and that business case has only become stronger. There are now 47 separate studies from groups such as Goldman Sachs showing that the companies that are the leaders in environmental, social and good governance policy have the fastest growing stock values and are well protected from value erosion even in a down economy.*

“This clearly indicates that behaving as if you care about the earth and its people is simply better business. If this were just coming from the likes of me or the Sierra Club, you could say, ‘Well, it’s just those enviros again.’ But it’s not—it’s all of the big management consulting houses as well as Harvard Business School and the MIT Sloan report. Sustainability is better business.”

The Cornerstones of Sustainable Management

Lovins’ proposed cornerstones of sustainable business management are somewhat simple, yet vastly profound in their implications. Read more ›

Is President Obama waging a war on coal? That’s the allegation from the coal industry and its champions in Congress as the Administration cracks down on carbon pollution.

The “war on coal” theme came up again last week when the Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants. But who’s warring whom? Let’s think about this.

The evolution of the U.S. economy – of any robust economy, in fact – is a story of invention and obsolescence. New technology comes along; old technology fades away. The people who depend on the old technology don’t like it. Until they adjust, they are victims of progress.

So it is with coal. The coal industry, including the black-faced, black-lunged miners who risk their lives every day to keep our lights on, deserves enormous credit for where we are today: one of the world’s most prosperous people.

But two new realities have emerged that are redefining progress: Coal is the dirtiest of the fuels responsible for global climate change, and we are finding much better ways to keep the lights on. The idea that the Obama Administration is waging a war against coal is like accusing Henry Ford of making war against buggy whips, or Apple of warring against conventional phones and typewriters. EPA’s new rules aren’t designed to kill the coal industry; they are a challenge for the industry to get clean or get gone. Read more ›

The next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be released later this month, may cause some heat of its own according to The New York Times.

The Times’ staff has seen a leaked copy of the document. It contains a potential controversy over the IPCC’s newest estimates of how much warming and how much damage we can expect by the end of this century.

Reporter Justin Gillis writes that the draft embraces the most conservative end of the damage spectrum created by the predictions of various climate scientists. For example, the IPCC so far has decided to assume 3 feet of sea level rise instead of 5 feet, and less than 3 degrees of atmospheric temperature increase instead of 5 degrees.

Gillis speculates that the IPCC’s history of being bullied might prompt the panel to err on the side of low-balling its projections.

“The group has been subjected to attack in recent years by climate skeptics,” he notes. “The intimidation tactics have included abusive language on blogs, comparisons to the Unabomber, e-mail hacking and even occasional death threats. Who could blame the panel if it wound up erring on the side of scientific conservatism?” Read more ›

Human caused climate disruption is real and happening all around us. According to some, however, the conviction that climate disruption is indeed happening, well, depends on the weather.

Figure 1: Snowpack Update 2012 Totals

As Professor Ed Maibach at George Mason University stated in an interview this past May, “People’s assessments of climate change are very susceptible to what they’ve recently experienced in the weather.”[i] It shouldn’t be this way. We ought to be smart enough to know that weather does not equal climate, but Professor Maibach is not alone in his assertion. Numerous studies conducted by the scientific community show that public opinion of human-caused climate disruption changes after recent extreme weather events.[ii]

Unless you live in a cave, you noticed the extreme weather variability between Spring 2012 and Spring 2013. Figure 1 shows the extreme dryness in Colorado in April 2012. In April 2013, however, residents experienced a completely different story as depicted in Figure 2. In 2012, most states in the country were gripped by drought, many experienced severe to anomalous levels of dryness.[iii] The drought, of course, contributed to the active fire season last year and such megafires as the High Park Fire near Fort Collins, Colorado and the Black Forest Fire near Colorado Springs.[iv] Read more ›

I cannot thank you enough for this wealth of information. It is one of the clearest, most inspiring and most compelling inputs we have received. We will draw on it for the synthesis report and it will be included in the Annex of source material we referenced. We are very grateful to you for the time you have put into this and our call last week. I have fond memories of your leadership of the civil society working group meetings at the High-level Meeting on Well-Being and Happiness last year and am very glad we could reconnect around this consultation.

“The boundary of the system…may be drawn around a single company, or around an industry, or as in Japan in 1950, the whole country. The bigger be the coverage, the bigger be the possible benefits, but the more difficult to manage. The aim must include the future.” W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics

Beginning with his first visit to Japan in 1946, Dr. W. Edwards Deming encouraged organizations to see their internal operations as a system, with an endless connection to suppliers and customers. According to Dr. Deming, management of an organization or a work group requires management of the parts and management of the relationships among the parts of the organization.

In doing so, his cyclical model for seeing production as a system bears a strong resemblance to the cyclical model used by environmentalists to remind us that “what goes around, comes around.”

Amongst the hundreds of executives inspired by Deming during his 1950 lecture series was Shoichiro Toyoda, whose efforts to improve the quality of Toyota’s automobiles led to a Total Quality Control effort that is integral today to Toyota’s Production System. Fast forward to 1991, when Toyoda offered this testimony, “There is not a day I don’t think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”

The ability to see the parallels between “Lean” and “Green” may be lost on those who associate Lean narrowly with a multitude of tools and techniques of industrial engineering, many copied from Toyota’s renowned Production System, and those who associate “Green” with a primary focus on one relationship, with the environment, and focus less on relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities in which they operate.

In writing Creating a Lean and Green Business System, Keivan, Hunter, Andy, and Peter have provided a highly valuable beginners guide to the possibilities that may emerge when Lean practitioners look beyond their tool box and focus on the environment, the open system their organization operates within.

With a generous basic perspective on both Lean and Green, the authors have also provided an invaluable guide for “Green” advocates to expand their environmental systems perspectives to include systems that operate within organizations.

Beyond the well-documented basics of both Lean and Green, the authors progress from essential theory and informative background to highly detailed and wide-ranging application examples, beneficial to both newcomers and experienced practitioners.

The dedicated chapter-length accounts of how three well-known companies, Adnams, Tesco, and Marks and Spencers, continuously engage employees to seek new opportunities for investment, provide easy to understand examples and explanations that a sustained systemic view of organizations yields results that can be measured in terms of undeniable superior profitability.

The financial results of these efforts represent the essence of sustaining any new order of thinking for how organizations operate. These accounts and evidence provided by this book offer an exciting reminder from Dr. Deming to Lean and Green leaders that “The bigger be the coverage, the bigger be the possible benefits.”

As Mother Jones and others are pointing out, there was a significant change in President Obama’s message when he gave his landmark climate speech last month. When he spoke about climate change at all during his first term, it was mostly about jobs. In his June 25 speech, it was mostly about morality – his moral imperative as president and father.That is an important shift in focus in the public arena and a possible preview for how global climate disruption should be made a campaign issue in next year’s mid-term elections. It will be another opportunity to sweep obstructionists out of Congress and to replace them with leaders who recognize their moral obligation to confront climate change head on.

This Congress is in unapologetic contempt of the American families who have been burned and flooded out of their homes; the elderly and ill who are succumbing to heat waves, now America’s No. 1 weather-related killer; and the farmers in the bread belt whose crops, animals and livelihoods have turned to dust.Read more ›

Watch the video introducing the Unreasonable Institute’s Entrepreneurs the Unreasonable Climax July 2013. Check out the flying penguins the very end! Hunter is honored to serve as a mentor to the Unreasonable Institute.

Ever since President Obama made his statement about the Keystone XL pipeline on June 25, editorial writers, climate-action activists and Canadian officials have been speculating about the significance of what he said. We are picking through his words like tealeaf readers.

The President’s staff reportedly feels that the President’s statement was straightforward and that all the speculation is fascinating. But for those optimists among us who want to believe President Obama is finally ready to tackle the climate issue, it sounded as though some very important precedents might be taking shape in the White House.

Here’s what the President said:

Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.

Natural Capitalism Solutions worked with Kashi over a two year period to integrate sustainability across its business operations and build effective communication platforms. As a part of this process, the NCS team developed a sustainability education and training curriculum to ensure all employees are aligned with Kashi’s sustainability goals and have a base of sustainability knowledge that can be applied in their daily work. This has provided Kashi a foundation from which the company continues to build and improve.

The curriculum was broken into six key areas identified by NCS and Kashi as vital to employee’s knowledge of sustainability. Each of the six areas provide a diverse range of learning materials, from group activities, video interviews, and interactive readings. The employee training went live in early 2010 and continues to get rave reviews, with many employees opting to pursue additional trainings

Email and Twitter are flooded with joyful electrons in anticipation of President Obama’s big speech on global climate change, scheduled for Tuesday at Georgetown University.

The legions who have worked so hard to push global warming to the top of the national agenda will have reason to celebrate if the President announces, in his words, a “national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it.”

Before the dancing begins, however, a few words of perspective are in order. Read more ›

The Obama Administration has unleashed its highly educated prognosticators to develop a new math for the Anthropocene. It attempts to count things we haven’t counted before. It also attempts to count things that haven’t happened yet but that might and probably will.

Get ready for the carbon lobby to brand this as heresy.

Here’s some background: Congress has failed to put a price on carbon. There’s no sign it intends to do so. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has developed a systematic way to estimate the “social cost of carbon” or SCC – in other words, the climate impacts of government policies on future generations. Agencies are using the SCC methodology to estimate the climate benefits of federal rules.

Here’s how EPA explains it:

The SCC is meant to be a comprehensive estimate of climate change damages and includes changes in net agricultural productivity, human health and property damages from increased flood risk. However, it does not include all important damages….The models used to develop SCC estimates do not assign value to all of the important physical, ecological and economic impacts of climate change recognized in the climate change literature because of a lack of precise information on the nature of damages and because the science incorporated into these models lags behind the most recent research.

We all know well the challenges facing us. From reversing ecological and economic collapses to meeting the development needs of seven billion (and growing) residents of our planet, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

But what can one person—or one organization—do?

A lot.

Join me on an adventure to transform the global economic paradigm. Read more ›

Since international negotiations on global climate change began, it has been the case that the two countries most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions today – the United States and China – could lead the world on the issue if they could agree with one another.

They haven’t gotten there yet, but they took a meaningful step last Saturday when Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping agreed to cooperate on phasing out the use of HFCs – a class of potent greenhouse gases used as refrigerants and in industrial processes.

The description of the agreement released by the White House notes that “a global phase down of HFCs could potentially reduce some 90 gigatons of CO2 equivalent by 2050, equal to roughly two years worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions”. Read more ›

How can companies implement true employee-level sustainability integration and unleash the powerful benefits to society, the environment, and business performance? How can the HR channel be utilized to develop objective and subjective sustainability goals by department, in the context of a well-articulated brand sustainability platform? What does it take to effectively drill down objective and subjective performance criteria and goals to the level of every employee?

“Conscious that unsustainable patterns of production and consumption can impede sustainable development, and recognizing the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and well-being of all peoples.”

~ United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 65/309, 2011

To meet the growing challenges facing humanity, many individuals, communities and societies are actively exploring different ways of looking at the world. Some have sought to describe a society in which happiness is the primary goal. Others have developed policies for a global economy based on a more thorough understanding of how safeguarding resources underpins the creation of material wealth. Others anticipate catastrophic events and surprises as portents of the future. Whilst different in substance, all these approaches have the common goal of lifting society to a new level of sustainable well-being. The King of Bhutan recently convened an International Expert Working Group to synthesize and integrate many of these ideas in order to set forth a New Development Paradigm.

America’s power system is too vulnerable to meet modern challenges — a harsh reality underscored by Hurricane Sandy, which left 8.1 million people in the dark for extended periods. Yet, widespread outages should no longer come as a surprise. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s electrical infrastructure a “D” grade in 2008. Years earlier, a Clinton-era energy secretary described America as “a superpower with a third-world grid.” Even though power system vulnerability has been obvious for over a decade, little has been done to address this critical weakness. If the United States wants to stay globally competitive, then the country must finally invest in the creation of a 21st-century power system capable of driving sustained economic growth.

Any power system overly dependent on centralized generation and long-distance transmission is inherently susceptible to massive failures, and our system has proven this time and again. Each day, nearly 500,000 Americans spend at least two hours without electricity, while brownouts and blackouts grind economic activity to a halt — costing the country up to $188 billion annually. Monetary losses from outages will only climb higher in the future given that economic activities increasingly demand reliable electricity. High-tech companies need consistent, quality power to protect manufacturing equipment, and almost all businesses require steady power for operating computers and other information technologies. Unfortunately, the nation’s current power system is incapable of meeting modern reliability needs as large blackouts are becoming not only more frequent but also more severe.

Adam Hammes [ I] caught Hunter Lovins on the phone recently for a quick (and poignant) interview about influence. She was frank and insightful — pulling no punches. It’s worth a listen! Hunter Lovins has been a leading author (14 books!) and promoter of sustainable development for over 30 years. She is president of Natural Capitalism Solutions, a 501(c)3 non-profit and the Chief Insurgent of the Madrone Project. She teaches sustainable business management at Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle, Washington. She has taught at several universities, consulted for citizens’ groups, governments and corporations. She co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) which she led for 20 years. Named a “green business icon” by Newsweek, a millennium “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine, she has also received the Right Livelihood Award, and the Leadership in Business Award. Her two most recent books are The Way Out and Creating a Lean and Green Business System.

Tuition is growing twice as fast as inflation. And student debt is larger than credit card and car loan debt – combined.

Now in negotiations with a large education publishing house for a series that would be the equivalent of the sustainability portion of a “green” MBA.

Students come to class having done as homework what was traditionally class. Class becomes an in-depth discussion and application of knowledge.

The AACSB recently announced that all MBA programs will need a sustainability component to retain or earn accreditation.

Many universities are really defensive about this mental model of education.

Hunter spoke at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois where the head of the MBA program was aware of the AACSC requirement and loved the idea saying, “We don’t have the sustainability experience on staff. Either we have to hire a bunch of faculty… or we just go with this.”

Hunter gave the keynote at AASHE and got reamed by educators saying, “But what about the 2 A.M. bull sessions in the dorm?”

“We have all of the technologies that we need to solve all of the problems facing the planet. What we need is:

political will

organized citizens demanding these types of solutions, and

implementation of what we already know how to do.”

Germany will be using 100% renewable energy by 2050 — mostly from solar. Not because they get more sunshine than California. Because they have good policy. And it has slowed their rise of utility rates.

Click here to read the report titled Sustainability Pays that summarizes dozens of studies on how sustainability is better for business.

We don’t have to argue about whether climate change is real. Assume it’s a hoax. Even if you are a profit-maximizing capitalist, if you understand the business case, you should do the exact same thing you would do if you were scared to death about climate change.

The science is bar talk. We can argue over drinks about whether the earth is getting hotter or cooler, and at what rate. But meanwhile, with our day jobs, let’s get on with solving the problems.

No One Changes Their Mind Because of a FactAUDIO:Hunter Lovins_Stories.mp3Click for more on Hunter discussing what influences people

“Unlike some people, I believe the 40% (that don’t believe in climate change) care just as deeply as we do. And it is our job to get better at talking to them.”

The #1 mistake environmentalists still make today is — talking to people from where WE are at, instead of where THEY are at.

First of all, ascertain what it is that the person to whom you are speaking cares most about.

Then, frame your argument in terms that meet their concerns.

A lot of right-wing conservatives care deeply about wild lands, the ability to go hunting and fishing… clean air for their children, a livable planet, a healthy economy.

A more effective route — “What is it that you care about? How can we work together to ensure that what you care about will be here for your grandchildren?”

Everything is your fault, if you’re any damn good.~ Ernest Hemingway

How much faster can we see change if 1,000,000 people understood this?

“It may not take 1 Million. It may take only 1… saying it at the right time and in the right way.”

Reaching out to people with whom we might disagree politically, in a caring way… is much more effective than how many numbers we have or precisely what the message is.

Most people don’t change their life because of a fact — a number, data, science. They change it because of something they care about. And our job is to help others understand that what they care about is threatened.

Fixing these problems will also strengthen the economy, will strengthen local businesses, put money in our pockets, make us more resilient.

Karen Howe, 2012 NCS Summer Intern, Director
WSCU understands students are at the heart of the sustainability movement. Sustainability at Western stems from student passion and energy to make a difference in their community.

Climate-change activist L. Hunter Lovins teaches at several universities, runs a few nonprofits, writes books and gives talks around the world. She was named a “green business icon” by Newsweek, and a millennium “Hero of the Planet” by Time magazine. The Longmont resident is, simply put, an international leader in the field of sustainable development and climate change, with a particular emphasis on business and how capitalism can thrive in a green economy. When she talks about the topics — and she probably spends most of her days immersed in conversation about things like hydraulic fracturing, solar energy, carbon credits and drought — facts and figures roll off her tongue, and a certain passion captivates her. Listening to her, you think: Here is a person I want on my side.

The forester, social scientist and lawyer has been fixated on sustainable development for decades. In 1982 she co-founded with her then-husband, Amory Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Snowmass nonprofit that wrestles with sustainability issues. Now, among many other things, she leadsNatural Capitalism Solutions, a nonprofit that helps businesses turn green.

Lovins, 63, who grew up in the mountains east of Los Angeles in a family of social activists, first moved to Colorado when she was 15 to go to high school. She never looked back, and she rarely removes her black cowboy hat, at least in public.

Given Lovins’ high profile, you might expect an office with a certain kind of green grandeur — something contemporary, with concrete floors and exposed metal and beetle-kill wood. But it’s just a small, turn-of-the-last-century farmhouse with creaky floors and sagging bookshelves and a draft in downtown Hygiene, which is little more than a rural intersection with a store and a cafe in unincorporated Boulder County.

The beat-up (and charming) farm house, the miniature town with its market selling homemade tamales and local lamb — these are Lovins’ kind of places. She lives on a nearby ranch, where she keeps a lot of horses and routinely adopts dogs. But she spends a good bit of her time in this atmospheric slip of a town.

Douglas Brown: I read your book, “Climate Capitalism.” It was full of hope, but it was infused with doom, too. Are we doomed? Read more ›

From the moment she took the stage, smiling in a black cowboy hat and turquoise scarf, I knew I was in for a great talk. In October 2012, I had the pleasure of attending a Hunter Lovins lecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She is a charismatic sustainability leader.

Lovins, the president and cofounder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, was named a Time Magazine “Hero of the Planet” in 2000, and is author and co-author of numerous books, including the groundbreaking work, Natural Capitalism,and most recently, Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change. Lovins’ delivery was insightful and I left with a richer understanding of social and environmental responsibility in business. I was surprised, however, by two unexpected lessons that stayed with me after the applause ended.

First, Lovins put the power of change into our hands. No one in the audience was exempt from responsibility. She engaged the audience and demonstrated the influence a single person can have. This individual power was distilled down to the daily choices we each make and how these choices make a difference in our communities and the world. To become conscious of your choices you needed to become conscious of your statement.

What does happiness have to do with sustainability?

The second theme grew more slowly into a complete concept. It was the kind of idea that you find yourself mulling over late at night. Lovins proposed happiness as a determinant of wealth both alongside, and in place of, monetary wealth. I smiled and wondered, “What does happiness have to do with sustainability?” Read more ›

Eric Garcetti currently serves as a Los Angeles City Councilmember, representing the 13th District. Mr. Garcetti was elected by his peers four times to serve as President of the Los Angeles City Council from 2006 to 2012. Now, Mr. Garcetti is running for Mayor of Los Angeles – in a race that will be decided on May 21.

The Clean Coalition knows Mr. Garcetti to be a stalwart champion of clean local energy. Recently, he authored legislation to establish the 100 megawatt (MW) CLEAN LA Solar Program. According to the Los Angeles Business Council, this 100 MW of local solar will create up to 4,500 jobs, generate $500 million in economic activity and offset 2.25 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. Additionally, the Sierra Club officially endorsed Eric Garcetti as their candidate for Mayor due to his outstanding environmental record.

As Mayor, Mr. Garcetti is committed to significantly expanding the production of local solar power in Los Angeles – specifically setting a level of 1,200 MW by 2016.

Craig Lewis, Founder and Executive Director of the Clean Coalition, recently had the chance to talk with Mr. Garcetti about making Los Angeles a national leader in the new energy economy, as captured in the relevant dialog below.

Craig Lewis (CL): Mr. Garcetti, you are committed to deploying 1,200 MW of solar energy within the City of Los Angeles by 2016. Why are you so dedicated to this objective? Read more ›

As Republicans soul-search about how to align themselves with the contemporary values and concerns of the American people, global climate change apparently remains verboten. In fact, the GOP is moving farther away from its own voters on the issue, not to mention the new voters it hopes to attract.

That makes last Tuesday’s election of Mark Sanford to the House of Representatives even more interesting. As governor of South Carolina in 2007, Sanford was one of several Republican governors who acknowledged anthropogenic climate change and argued that it could be addressed with conservative market-based solutions.

Sanford’s election to the House already is a fascinating story – a dramatic come-from-behind victory and a dramatic comeback for a man who left his governorship in disgrace. He won this week without the support of the Republican National Campaign Committee, but with the backing of the Tea Party Express.

Therein lies a climate-related subplot. Three years ago, the Tea Party helped defeat another Republican congressman from South Carolina — Bob Inglis – after he acknowledged the reality of global warming. Sanford will have to stand for reelection again next year. Will he be intimidated by the Tea Party and the ideological militancy of the Republican Party, and flip-flop on climate change?

Or will he begin restoring his integrity by remaining true to his past position and joining the small group of Republicans who recognize that ignoring climate change is one of the issues that makes the GOP look like “the stupid party“? Read more ›

The Way Out: Kick-Starting Capitalism To Save Our Economic Ass, by Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen, argues, in a clear and unapologetic voice, that the only way to rebuild the global economy, cities and job markets while assuring peaceful national security is to do precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change.

Chicago Family Business Council and DePaul University’s “The Sweet Spark of Success”
“Lead Follow or Get Out of the Way” by L. Hunter Lovins
(download slides)
Chicago Family Business Council celebrated Abt Electronics and their impressive 77 years of successful business. Michael Abt was in attendance to accept the Chicago Family Business Council’s Leadership Award, on behalf of Abt Electronics and tell their story, and what has helped them become such a remarkable family business. While on the track of success, earlier in the day we learned about the important role sustainability plays in having a successful business. Hunter Lovins joined the CFBC and spoke on her book, The Way Out: Kick-starting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass. This event was complimentary to CFBC members and the DePaul Community.

We met briefly in October 2012 at AASHE in LA. It was at your book signing and you were kind enough to sign a copy of your book for me, to give my nephew Josh who’s at Elon University in NC. Josh called me last night quite excited after meeting you and you remembering signing his name for me last fall—I believe I mentioned he was at Elon and studying biz + sust. I think that just by you remembering this when you met him is a moment he’ll carry the rest of his life, and further imbed sustainability into his studies. I’m definitely not a business minded person per se—his Mother is the expert on that, like our Dad—but, I believe it will be business—and through capitalism—that can and should – and hopefully will advance sustainable solutions to the grave dangers we’re creating for ourselves.

Having lived in Canada 20 years and becoming a citizen, I know that a heavier focus on the public good there is beneficial to all – and it’s not the evil socialism that preys upon many Americans who block the idea of universal health care! Please keep up the fantastic work you’re doing—a true American heroine! Thank you again for remembering Josh—there’s a Yiddish word “kvell” which I felt last night when he called me—it’s the feeling when your heart is so full of joy it’s about to explode. Not that I speak a lot of Yiddish, but I know and love that word.

Sometimes, the little moments like last night are the big moments for someone. Maybe if there were more of them, the 2 Boston marathon bombing suspects would have made other and better choices in their recent years. See, it comes back to sustainability..all of it.

With the exception of Alfred E. Newman and those who are taking advantage of legalized pot, we Americans are very good worriers. We are even able to worry about several things at once. It’s a kind of emotional multi-tasking and we do it all the time.

Nevertheless, it’s a skill that President Obama consistently underestimates when he talks about the politics of global climate change. The most recent example came in his meeting earlier this month with high-net-worth supporters in San Francisco. As the New York Times reported it, the President lamented that the politics of the environment are “tough”.

“You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not your No. 1 concern,” the Times quoted him as saying. “And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by.”

How many times are you offered the chance to really swing for the fences? To be a part of something that could shape the future?

Most days are the usual sort: e-mails to be answered, classes to be prepared, reporters to be spoken with, articles to be drafted, corporate consultations to be walked through, interns to be folded into our ongoing projects….

It’s good work.

If we’re lucky, it adds up to genuine change: a company commits to adopt more sustainable practices, students choose lives of being change agents, someone reads something I’ve written and says, “That’s how I want to spend my life.”

So when an opportunity to try for a really big difference flies at me, I swing.

People can be excused for thinking I live a glamorous life: 2013 began by setting sail (literally) with the Unreasonable Institute – on the Semester at Sea ship. Blue water over the bow, 25 kick-ass entrepreneurs to be mentored, 600 undergraduates to talk with over meals, and guest lecture to, and Bishop Desmond Tutu for company.

I loved it, but left the ship in Hawaii – it’s somewhere off Africa now – to scramble back to the Central Coast of California to give a speech for Pacific Gas and Electric. And was delighted to see that THEIR first slide was titled: The Business Case for Sustainability. Read more ›

Hunter Lovins: The founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions has pushed the cause of restoring natural and human capital long before the rest of us chattered about it. Ms. Lovins has also worked with some of the world’s largest companies in their quest to become more sustainable.

Would the Keystone XL pipeline make America more secure or less? What contribution would it make, if any, to stabilizing our energy supplies or keeping us out of messes elsewhere in the world? Would it have an adverse impact on global climate disruption, or no impact at all? Informed people want to know.

Unfortunately, some of the pipeline’s supporters are fogging up the issue with deceptive numbers and claims, including vastly inflated job estimates and assurances that the pipeline would make America more secure.

Not according to the people who know security best, including high-ranking retired American military leaders who are no longer gagged by their uniforms.

Among those invoking national security are 14 Republicans from the House of Representatives who wrote to President Obama to argue that his rejection of the project would raise “dire national security concerns” by prolonging our dependence on oil from countries like Venezuela. Read more ›

On March 19, The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its new report card on the condition of America’s infrastructure. Overall, our infrastructure in 16 categories ranging from bridges to water systems earned only a D+. ASCE estimates the United States needs to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020 to bring America’s infrastructure up to good repair.

Among these systems are several that are critical to reducing the loss of life and property from the growing impacts of global climate change. Dams were graded D; levees earned only a D-; waste water and storm water control systems also were given a D. Drinking water and energy infrastructure – both vulnerable to extreme weather events – received a D and D+ respectively.

The bad news is that the cost of bringing these engineered systems up to par comes at a time when government budgets at all levels are strained, if not in crisis. The good news is that some of the services we receive from engineered systems can be provided instead by natural systems if we restore and protect them.

Ecosystems perform a wide variety of important services for free. Trees provide shade, purify air and water, and store carbon. Wetlands regulate flooding. Coastal marshes buffer communities from storm surges. Forests and soils store carbon as well as water. Many of these ecosystems have been degraded or destroyed by human development. Now, communities need to put nature back to work.

I asked three of the United States’ premier experts on ecosystem services about these issues. The first is Keith Bowers, president of Biohabitats Inc. in Baltimore. Mr. Bowers is working on conservation, restoration and regenerative design projects across the United States, from Fairbanks, Alaska to the Big Cypress Swamp in Florida. The second expert is Dr. Bob Costanza, the ecological economist who coauthored one of the first assessments of the economic value of global ecosystem services. The third expert is Prof. Ed Barbier, a prolific author and blogger on the topic and a professor of economics at the University of Wyoming.

Bill Becker (Q):It has been our practice in the United States not to value things we can’t count – particularly things we don’t think have monetary value. A great deal of work has been underway in recent years to express the value of ecosystem services in monetary units so we can quantify their benefits in terms that everyone understands. What’s the status of that work? Read more ›

As debate heats up again over the Keystone XL pipeline, each side will drop cluster bombs of data on why President Obama should or should not allow the project to proceed. The conventional arguments can be summarized in two words: jobs and carbon.

There are much bigger issues to consider, however. They include Obama’s credibility in the fight against climate disruption, the United States’ credibility in international climate negotiations, and whether the president’s “all of the above” energy policy will destroy any chance we have to prevent catastrophic changes in the world’s climate.

Before considering those issues, let’s touch on jobs and carbon.

Jobs: Proponents claim the project will create 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs in the United States, plus 100,000 indirect and “induced” jobs. In its latest environmental impact analysis, the State Department puts the number at 5,000 to 6,000 direct jobs during the two years it takes to build the pipeline. Read more ›

Boulder can create a cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable power system. The analysis of Boulder’s energy options, released last Thursday, found that the formation of a city owned and operated utility would slash greenhouse gas emissions while matching Xcel’s energy rates. Importantly, by giving Boulder control over its electrical system, municipalization allows the city to drive a decentralized, clean energy transformation.

With a municipal utility, Boulder could easily implement a Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) Program — a feed-in tariff with streamlined interconnection procedures. CLEAN Programs accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by encouraging broad participation in the energy sector and incentivizing innovation, competition, and entrepreneurship — a contrast to Xcel’s current monopoly. Local businesses, residents, and organizations can be energy producers, not just consumers, by building renewable energy projects on rooftops and parking lots. Read more ›

It has not taken long for Barack Obama to face the first big test of his resolve on combatting global climate disruption.

That test is the Keystone Pipeline, which would carry one of the dirtiest of all fossil fuels from the tar sands of Canada to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Obama ultimately is “the decider” on whether or not to let the pipeline proceed.

A great deal has been written about the pros and cons of Keystone, including competing claims about its impacts on jobs, the environment, gasoline prices and so on. There is strong evidence that the money would be better invested in clean energy and associated jobs.

However, too little has been written about the moral dimension of Obama’s decision. That dimension is succinctly described by K.C. Golden, the policy director at Climate Solutions. He calls it the “Keystone Principle”:

We cannot abide any major federal action that results in long-term capital investments that lock in emission trajectories that make catastrophic climate disruption inevitable. More simply, we have much patient work to do over many decades to make it better, but we must immediately stop making it worse. We are in the “era of consequences” now. Each month brings new pictures of the victims. Today and every day from here forward, we can pledge ourselves to this and demand it of the Obama Administration: We will not allow major new investments in making climate disruption worse. Read more ›

Here’s a novel idea. Instead of importing oil from Canadian tar sands, the United States should import Canadian energy policy.

The province of Ontario recently announced that it would become the first jurisdiction in North America to completely eliminate coal from its energy mix — a notable achievement given that Ontario generates more electricity than the vast majority of U.S. states and relied on coal for 25 percent of its total electricity supply just a decade ago. Key to the coal phase out has been Ontario’s adoption of a proven energy policy that is responsible for driving clean energy transformations around the world and has enormous potential for the United States. Fortuitously, this unparalleled policy approach is complementary to U.S. tax incentives and Renewable Portfolio Standards. Read more ›

Barack Obama is very likely the last American president who can keep us from plunging helplessly off the climate cliff. Judging by his Inaugural and State of the Union speeches, he gets that.

It has been a long time coming.

Lyndon Johnson was the first president on record to be warned that unless our energy policies changed, climate change would become apparent, and perhaps irreversible, by the turn of the century. In 1965, Johnson’s panel of science advisors told him:

By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO2 in the atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur. Now, 48 years and eight presidents later, climate disruption is accelerating more quickly than most scientists predicted. U.S. energy policy is still dominated by denial, by the political influence of fossil energy industries, and by Congress’s negligent disregard for climate science. The growing consensus now is that the world is locked in to global temperature increases well above the 2 degrees Centigrade that scientists say would give us an even chance of avoiding the worst impacts of global warming.

In 2009, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that global greenhouse gas emissions must begin to decline by 2015 if we are to keep climate disruption from spinning beyond control.

“It is not enough to set any aspirational goal for 2050,” he said. “It is critically important that we bring about a commitment to reduce emissions effectively by 2020.”

That threshold year –2015 – is happening on Obama’s watch. Read more ›

At the Epicenter, a unique, interactive conversation with a powerhouse panel of leading women “ecopreneurs” including Hunter Lovins, Kim Coupounas and Brook Eddy, hosted by Seleyn DeYarus of Best Organics. February 12th, Boulder, Colorado

This is an interview done while Hunter was in Bhutan 29 January-3 February 2013. Much of the work that was done while she was there is still under embargo–stay tuned!

Kuensel: Did we make any headway?

Hunter Lovins: Definitively. It’s mind bogglingly amazing that you could pull this diversity of disciplines, of points of views, of stature and come to the kind of consensus and coherence that will be reflected through this process.

You have people from almost every part of the globe in various fields and very diverse mental models about what the problem is and what the answers are.

There are people here who believe the problem is within each individual, the answer is building within each individual the capacity to find happiness. There are people here, like me, who believe the problem is the system – economic, political, business – and the answers lie in policy, in transforming how business is done, in laws, in economic measures.

You bring those two divergent points of views together and you’re bound to have sparks flying. Read more ›

There’s no question that when it comes to fixing national problems, Congress has bigger power tools than the President of the United States. But the President is not powerless. He has a variety of authorities conferred by the Constitution, validated by the courts, implied by tradition or delegated by Congress.

Nor does President Obama lack ideas on how to use those tools, especially on the topic of climate disruption. Since he announced in his Inaugural address that confronting climate change will be one his priorities in the second term, Obama has been bombarded with recommendations from outside groups.

He has tools. He has ideas. The next question is how aggressively he’ll use them. Several factors will be in play: his philosophy of government, competition from other issues on how he spends his political capital, his relationship with Congress or what he wants it to be, whether climate disruption has become a gut issue for him, and whether he has the support of the American people. More about that later.

Many of the President’s tools are well known, and the Obama Administration used a number of them on climate and energy issues during his first term. There’s the veto. There’s each president’s authority to appoint the smartest people in the country to lend their expertise in key government posts. There’s the power of the bully pulpit, used so successfully by past presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy to rally the nation to big achievements. Read more ›

With a new foreign policy team about to join the Obama Administration and with the possibility of budget cuts for the Department of Defense, are changes ahead in how the United States approaches national security? That question is on the minds of thought leaders in the security and defense communities. In the discussion, a novel idea is emerging: that sustainable development at home is a critical dimension of America’s foreign policy and national security strategy. (For examples, see here and here.)
One of the thought leaders is Marine Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby. Before retiring from the Marine Corps in 2011, he served as a special strategic assistant to the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen. While in that post, Mykleby and his colleague, Navy Captain Wayne Porter, proposed a new vision for a 21st Century American grand strategy in a paper entitled “A National Strategic Narrative.” They suggested that the U.S. needs to build security through sustainable development at home, creating the credibility and influence to lead the world down a more lasting peace and prosperity. That path, they suggested, is less expensive and more effective than investing solely in the traditional tools of foreign policy, which have been mostly dominated by military power.

I asked Col. Mykleby about these and other issues facing President Obama in his second term. The resulting interview is long but well worth reading. It offers a fresh approach to national security from someone who has served at the highest levels of the U.S. military.

Bill Becker:As Congress and the President hammer out an agreement to cut federal spending, what are your concerns about the impact on our military effectiveness and national security? Can we save money without sacrificing security?

Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby: To be honest, I’m not too concerned about our long-term military effectiveness. We have the finest, most professional, best-equipped, and most lethal military force the world has ever seen. I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon, with or without budget cuts. I say this simply because I believe the quality of our military is mostly tied to the quality of our people (and the quality of their training). I’m not saying budget cuts won’t be painful, but we need to have some historical perspective on this. Our national defense budget historically has been cyclical; it looks like a sine wave. We’ve survived budget cuts before; we’ll survive them again. During my career in the Marine Corps, we never seemed to have enough “stuff.” That’s why I always found it useful to remember the words of former Marine Corps Commandant General Al Gray, “Fight with what you’ve got; make what you need.” Read more ›

Dawn of the great day. I woke before the alarm, packed my gear and got gone downstairs to catch the bus to Ensenada to board the boat.

With some anxiety. I’d asked the clueless ol’ gal sitting on the Semester at Sea desk in the lobby of the Hilton about the details of the bus to meet the boat in Mexico next morning, to be told that the bus was going Wednesday AM. Not tomorrow.

But my hotel reso was for one night.

Gawd, did we get it wrong? I checked with the inveterate Nancy, my Exec, who assured me that Taylor, Chief of Staff for Unreasonable at Sea, had assured her that the bus went Tuesday. But she’d check.

Course Taylor was nowhere to be found – no doubt managing the thousand and one last minute details or getting this show organized. Several hours later when Nancy’d corralled Taylor word came back: the bus goes tomorrow.

But when at 5:45 in the cold dark of a San Diego alley, with no bus, no fellow passengers , no nothing, the anxiety gnawed. I sat. Big trucks crawled by. As did the minutes.

The coast of Mexico stretches away south. From my hotel room in San Diego I can see where I will journey tomorrow to join the Semester at Sea ship to sail to Hawaii. As a mentor for the new program, Unreasonable at Sea, I’ll be working with 25 young entrepreneurs who have joined this inaugural program to bring social entrepreneuring to the world.

The lines from Tennyson’s Ulysses come to me:

Come, my friends,‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die.

Not quite. I’ll only be on the boat to Hawaii. I’m due on the central coast of California to give a speech for Pacific Gas and Electric on the 17th. We’ll dock in Hilo on the 15th, I’ll spend the day with the Governor, various dignitaries and our Unreasonable entrepreneurs, then hop a night flight to LA, thence to San Luis Obispo, grab some sleep and go back to work.

Imagine this: You live in beautiful house with the best of everything. However, when you turn on your faucets, only one-fifth of the water you pay for comes out. The rest leaks from bad plumbing onto your basement floor.

That describes America’s situation with energy. Only 13% of the energy we burn results in useful work. The rest is wasted by inefficiencies in buildings, power plants, infrastructure, transportation systems and equipment. Much of it ends up as pollution.

Just as a responsible householder would fix his plumbing, a responsible nation would fix the leaks in its energy economy. Responsible businesses are figuring this out and are saving money with green energy, including greater efforts to get more work out of every energy dollar, cutting their greenhouse gas emissions in the process.

I discussed this recently with Hunter Lovins, one of the world’s leading experts on the business case for sustainable energy. Hunter, who Newsweek has called “the green business icon,” co-authoredBrittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Securityin 1982;Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution in 2010; andClimate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Changewith Boyd Cohen in 2011, now available inpaperbackasThe Way Out: Kick-Starting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass.

In her latest book, Hunter writes:

Believe in climate change. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter. But you’d better understand this: the best route to rebuilding our economy, our cities, and our job markets, as well as assuring national security, is doing precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change. Whether you’re the head of a household or the CEO of a multinational corporation, embracing efficiency, innovation, renewables, carbon markets, and new technologies is the smartest decision you can make. It’s the most profitable, too. And, oh yes — you’ll help save the planet.

This post was a two-part interview in Huffington Post.

Bill Becker: In his first news conference after the election, President Obama said he’d like a national conversation on combating global climate change. However, he suggested — and I’ll paraphrase him here — that the conversation needs to address the job and economic benefits of climate action, because that’s foremost on the minds of the American people. You’ve worked with companies around the world on the business case for reducing their carbon emissions. What kind of reception have you found?

Hunter Lovins: A warm one. Smart companies recognize that the best way to cut their carbon emissions is to cut their use of energy through implementing cost-effective energy efficiency, because this cuts their costs. Read more ›

Reader Question: I’ve studied and followed sustainability for years now and am fully on board. It strikes me though that so much of the ideas almost seem common sense, and certainly logical. Why is there such resistance to the idea? Does it require a belief and understanding of our interconnected nature?

As a follow-on, I (and I know thousands of others too), want to work in the sustainability field. I am ready to give up a lucrative and specialized set of knowledge to work in this arena. However, it strikes me that really anyone can do this type of work. From a career perspective, am I looking at this all wrong, is it silly to give up a specialized skill set and get into this field (even if just to see if I like it)? –Anonymous

Hunter Lovins: Yes, much of sustainability is common sense, though as has often been remarked, that is an uncommon commodity.

Why the resistance? Margaret Mead once said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby. And I’d argue that the baby squalls all through the process. Humans delight in change and fear it, all at once.

Change that is painted as a sacrifice, as much of the environmental movement has portrayed the shifts necessary, is particularly unpalatable. The corporate interests, who, as Bill McKibben has pointed out in his excellent Rolling Stone interview, Exxon and the other fossil fuel companies have a business model that rests entirely on roasting the planet. It is very much in their interest to portray any changes that dampen their sales as extremely distasteful, even un-American. Read more ›

Superstorm Sandy may be remembered years from now as the pivot point in the United States’ response to global climate change. Politically speaking, Sandy’s true power was not its wind and water; it was the fact that it hit the principal center of America’s population, financial institutions and media.

It was another wake-up call, but with more people in high places hearing the alarm. Network news anchors are now acknowledging that climate change may be the common denominator in all the weird and destructive weather we’ve seen in recent years. Mitt Romney’s view that we don’t need FEMA is now unthinkable, and Congress should be getting the message that climate change is a budget buster — that investments in mitigation are far cheaper than paying for damages.

The Paul Reveres of climate change may find New Yorkers and New Jersyans joining their ranks. This is a case where “fugetaboutit” should become “do something about it.” Read more ›

Ask any member of the Outdoor Industry Association’s Sustainability Working Group or Sustainable Apparel Coalition and they will tell you consumers are not the ones driving sustainability. Companies such as prAna, Patagonia and GoLite were weaving environmental good into the fibers of their operations long before ‘green’ became a buzzword. For them, using — or abusing — sustainability purely as a marketing strategy deflates the concept’s complexity, dilutes company values, and ultimately disserves their customer.

For Beth Jensen, head of the SWG, sustainability is not a marketing device but rather “the license to do business.” Director of Sustainability at prAna, Nicole Bassett, concurs: “Marketing becomes a laundry list — it’s organic, it’s fair trade, it’s made of recycled materials. … And we’ve completely destroyed the true essence of what we’re trying to get across in sustainability.” Read more ›

For those of us concerned about the future of the United States in an era of global climate change and international competition over diminishing natural resources, the new report from the National Intelligence Council (NIC) contains goods news and bad news.

The good news: The NIC predicts that in a “likely tectonic shift” the United States could become energy independent in the next 10 years. That’s a goal we’ve been trying to achieve since the oil embargoes of the 1970s.

The bad news: The NIC predicts we’ll get there by increasing our addiction to fossil fuels. In other words, we’ll stop importing oil but we’ll export more greenhouse gases and make ourselves more vulnerable to rising seas and weather disasters. Surprisingly, the nation’s top intelligence agency doesn’t directly acknowledge this rather important trade-off. Read more ›

As Natural Capitalism Solutions celebrates its tenth anniversary, Hunter Lovins reflects on what has changed in the sustainability world over the past decade, how companies have woken up to the profitability of sustainability, why things are going to get worse before they get better, and how small businesses and cities may hold the key to climate protection. Ilana Lipsett and Zach Sharpe of Sustainable Industries spoke with Lovins, and invite you to continue the conversation. Lovins answered reader questions through the Sustainable Industries web site and is happy to do so here as well.

Sustainable Industries: In your opinion, what is the most pressing sustainability challenge we are facing right now?

Hunter Lovins: Bill McKibben is right: It’s climate. We solve this one or we lose life as we know it on this planet. Three of the earth’s ecosystems are tipping into collapse: coral reefs, oceans, and the Amazon. If we continue business as usual, by the end of the century there will be no coral reefs because of warming water. The oceans are acidifying, and the Amazon is warming and drying. We could lose the earth’s lungs.

There are many challenges facing us. All of the worse ones tend to be tied to climate change. And it’s frustrating because as my recent book, The Way Out: Kick-starting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass, has shown, we have all the solutions. Implementing them would make us a great deal of money. … And at the end of the day, if climate change is a hoax we’ll just make a lot of money.

SI: How have you seen behaviors toward sustainability change in the last 10 years?Read more ›

This is the last in a three-part post about what the Atlantic Coast can learn in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy from victims of past natural disasters.

When it comes to solving problems, elected officials are inclined to support solutions that allow people to keep behaving as they always have, but with less damage. That’s how it has been with America’s response to weather-related disasters.

It’s a response that won’t work anymore. America’s experience with weather disasters over the past century proves that the least political risk often imposes the greatest physical and financial risks. What’s more, as federal disaster policies are structured today, all taxpayers are helping insure people who choose to live in harm’s way and all of us share the cost of cleaning up the messes after disasters occur.

It’s questionable whether these policies can be sustained politically; it’s almost certain they can’t be sustained financially. There is a dangerous confluence of factors coming together like a super storm. At the same time we are experiencing more extreme weather and after years of destroying natural systems that once protected us, our disaster prevention infrastructure is aging and funds to fix it are scarce.

To be clearer, the natural disasters I refer to in this post are not really natural. They are the extreme weather events influenced by anthropogenic climate change, made worse by the destruction of ecosystems and by poor building practices, and made more deadly by people’s insistence on living and working in known hazard areas. They include floods, heat waves, extreme storms, hurricanes, drought and wildfires. Read more ›

This is the second in a three-part post about what the Atlantic Coast can learn in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy from victims of other natural disasters.

In 1993, flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers produced one of the country’s worst natural disasters at the time, killing 50 people and causing $15 billion in damages. Hundreds of flood control levees failed in nine Midwestern states. Parts of the region remained underwater for five months.

When floodwaters finally began to subside, pubic television aired a movie about Soldiers Grove’s relocation to higher ground (see Part 1). People in several of the communities destroyed by “The Great Flood of 1993” saw the movie and tracked me down where I was working at the time — the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) — to ask for advice as they considered moving out of the floodplain. Read more ›

This is the first in a three-part post about the potential for sustainable recovery along the Atlantic Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

As the communities on the East Coast contemplate rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, here is a story they might consider. I’ve told it before. It seems like a good time to tell it again.

In the late 1970s, a small community in Wisconsin made a big decision. The Village of Soldiers Grove decided that when people and nature come into conflict, it’s sometimes better for people to get out of the way.

A little history is necessary. From its founding in 1856, the Soldiers Grove had been a river town. It was built on the banks of the Kickapoo River, a 126-mile-long tributary of the Wisconsin River in the southwestern corner of the state.

Being “river rats”, as the townspeople liked to call themselves, made sense then. The river furnished mechanical power for the village’s principal industry, a sawmill, and provided an easy way to transport logs cut from the forested hillsides upstream. The Kickapoo eventually provided the village with electricity, too. Read more ›

In his first post-election news conference, President Obama made clear that his concern about global climate change will not push the economy and jobs off the top of his priority list.

“If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader,” he said, “I think that’s something that the American people would support.”

The CCS report gives Obama some good news to share with Americans who have been victimized by extreme weather, as well as those who are victims of the recession. It also gives his Administration some good news for the international community when it meets later this month in Doha, Qatar, to continue work on a global climate treaty. In the past, the United States has been regarded as a laggard in cutting carbon emissions.

CCS – a diverse group of experts best known for helping states create and develop broad support for climate action plans – said its economic and energy modeling shows the United States is on a trajectory to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 23% by 2020, compared to estimates in 2005 by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Sliced another way, we’re on the path to achieving nearly 70% of President Obama’s goal for carbon emission reductions by 2020. Read more ›

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

That observation by Charles Darwin has interesting implications in these last weeks of the presidential election campaign. It suggests that both candidates may be missing what’s most important to keeping America safe, strong and competitive in the years ahead.

Jobs, education, tax reform and energy security all are important, of course. But the key to America’s success will be our willingness to adapt to the new realities of the 21st century.

One of those realities is that economic development as we have practiced it, and as it is now being replicated around the world, is rapidly pushing us toward several critical ecological boundaries and has already exceeded others. These boundaries are important not only because they threaten some species and some regions of the world; they’re important because exceeding them is an existential threat to continued peace and prosperity. These are not the relatively isolated and repairable environmental problems of the past. They involve global systems that support life, including the oceans, soils and freshwater resources. They also include the atmosphere’s ability to absorb man-made pollution without destabilizing the climate. The most available way to manage that risk is to reduce and eventually stop burning oil and coal to fuel economic development. Read more ›

Earlier this month, federal officials streamlined the development of centralized, large-scale, solar power plants by establishing 17 new “solar energy zones” on 285,000 acres of public land. According to Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, this cutting of red tape will expand solar energy production and help the nation remain competitive in the global clean energy race. While this move marks a step in the right direction, an integral piece of the puzzle is still missing. Policymakers must also streamline the development of local energy, known as distributed generation (DG).

The role of DG in the global renewable energy market is rapidly growing. In fact, Germany’s solar market — the world’s largest — is dominated by DG. Of all Germany’s solar capacity, which is large enough to meet half the country’s midday energy needs, 80 percent is on rooftops. DG, not large-scale generation, is powering Germany’s solar success. Streamlining DG in the United States, which boasts significantly stronger renewable resources than Germany, will put the nation on a path towards lasting energy independence. Read more ›

While energy got some airtime in the second presidential debate, neither candidate hit at the weakest spots in the other’s positions. Mitt Romney’s energy platform ignores the substantial downsides of fossil fuels and reveals a misunderstanding of how the rea

l world works. President Obama has presided over a national energy strategy that he admits is a “hodgepodge”.

This is a topic that deserves far more attention before Nov. 6. After all, we all use energy. We all pay for it. We all breathe its pollution. We all depend on it to be there when we need it. If there is one issue that affects every American of every age, place and income level, it’s energy.

Here are the some of the details that didn’t come out in the debate, starting with a look at Gov. Romney’s policies, then Obama’s:

The energy paper the Romney campaign released in August presumably is the definitive statement of his energy plans. He proposes that the United States achieve energy independence by 2020 by producing more oil, coal and natural gas. What we couldn’t produce ourselves, we’d import from Canada and Mexico. Read more ›

An ongoing argument in the presidential election campaign is whether Gov. Romney’s or President Obama’s positions are better for small businesses on issues such as government regulation and energy policy. I asked David Levine for his opinion.

Levine is cofounder and CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), a growing non-partisan coalition of business networks and businesses committed to creating a vision, a framework and policies that support a vibrant, just and sustainable economy. Founded in 2009, ASBC’s mission is to inform and engage business leaders, and to educate policy makers and the media, about the need and opportunities for a sustainable economy.

ASBC and its organizational members represent more than 150,000 businesses and more than 300,000 individual entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals across the United States. Members cover the gamut of local and state chambers of commerce, microenterprise, social enterprise, green and sustainable business groups, local living economy groups, women business leaders, economic development organizations and investor and business incubators

Here’s what Levine had to say.

1) Both presidential candidates have highlighted the value of small businesses in creating jobs. How important is mitigating and adapting to climate change to small business development and success?

There is a particular concern among our members about the consequences of human-induced climate change. As the World Bank’s World Development Report 2010 argues, “Economic growth alone is unlikely to be fast or equitable enough to counter threats from climate change, particularly if it remains carbon intensive and accelerates global warming.” The World Bank goes on to say, “climate policy cannot be framed as a choice between growth and climate change. In fact, climate-smart policies are those that enhance development, reduce vulnerability, and finance the transition to low-carbon growth paths.” Read more ›

Remember the feeling of excitement on your first day of class? Imagine the first day of creating a whole new MBA program.

I was honored last month to give the inaugural lecture to a class of 19 candidates for a Masters in Sustainable Business, the new MBA created by Bard College. Unlike most MBA programs, the fundamentals of doing business in sustainable ways are woven throughout the entire curriculum. More, we will be using the city of New York as a living laboratory – yep, that’s a class that all students are enrolled in – exploring how one of the world’s great cities is implementing more sustainable practices, what the best businesses are doing in sustainable finance, manufacturing, retail and services.

As part of this, all students will be blogging here, describing the cool new companies they are finding, the best practices of making it happen and the cool things that they are learning in their classes.

Want to come along for the ride? Sit back and enjoy. Every week now, the students and faculty will be bringing you the best of Bard MBA.

The Obama and Romney campaigns are making the point that there are big differences between the positions of the two presidential candidates, and America has a clear choice between two futures.

There are no issues on which those statements are truer than energy policy and its impact on global climate change. The candidates haven’t said much about climate change so far. They should be forced to talk about it in one of the upcoming presidential debates, preferably the first of the three mano a mano face-offs on Oct. 3 in Denver.

Every interest group in the country would like to see its issues highlighted in a presidential debate. Why should climate change be at the top of the list? Read more ›

If you think engaging employees across several departments within your company is challenging, try engaging every employee from public defenders to road maintenance workers in one of California’s largest counties. Alameda County is tackling just that, using sustainability to rally their employees to take climate action.

Alameda County’s 9,000 employees range from sheriffs to librarians to landscapers. County employees provide health and human services to the most vulnerable populations, run elections, inspect restaurants, ensure the safe use of agricultural pesticides, prevent floods, and prepare for emergencies. Even though these employees work in different departments with very different day-to-day tasks, they have a common interest in making the county a better place to live and work. A recent countywide survey demonstrated that thousands of county employees are eager to make more sustainable choices. However, creating a structure in which employees are able to make those decisions is what makes Alameda County stand out.

I had the opportunity to talk to Emily Sadigh, Sustainability Project Manager at Alameda County, about their sustainability team’s success with employee engagement.

Hanna Schum: Tell me about how your program to engage employees in climate action started.

Emily Sadigh: When our Board of Supervisors adopted the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 (and later the interim goal of 15% by 2020), a collaborative effort started among 20 county agencies to achieve the goal. This effort ultimately led to the Alameda County Climate Action Plan for Government Operations and Services.

Employees submitted more than 500 ideas for the plan at employee events and through the intranet, email, and their agencies’ Read more ›

Why Give a Damn: New corporate leadership and sustainability practices are reshaping the business landscape. Learn how you can help shape the future you want to live in by voting with your dollars.

Fall settles softly over the St. Vrain Valley, as gold tinges the cottonwoods and snow softens the Rocky Mountain front. Warm days, cool evenings – perfect for sitting on my deck as the horses graze and reflecting on times past.

It’s been a year and a bit since my friend Ray Anderson died, and this evening I’m missing him. Ray was one of the first traditional industrialists to recognize that everything that his company did was contributing to the destruction of life as we know it on earth. And, he vowed, his company, Interface, would be the first company of the next industrial revolution.

His next observation was that he hadn’t a clue how to do that. So he called Paul Hawken, who, along with Amory Lovins, would become my co-author of the book Natural Capitalism – tho in 1994 it remained a gleam in our eyes – and asked for help. Paul called a bunch of us and we became Ray’s “Dream Team”. Together we guided Interface to become the poster child of sustainable business, and Ray became a friend. Read more ›

Note:Hunter Lovins is a past Wrigley Lecture Series speaker at ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and was a keynote speaker at the inaugural conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education held at ASU in 2006.

Business is probably the only institution on the planet that is nimble and well-managed enough to respond to the global sustainability crises facing humanity. Such challenges as the impacts of climate change, soaring resource prices, poverty, and loss of biodiversity are threats, but are also opportunities. The businesses that successfully respond will be big winners in the marketplace.

Business sustainability leaders already outperform their less sustainable peers. Over 40 studies from all the major management consulting houses, as well as from academic journals such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Review, show that the companies that are sustainability leaders have higher and faster growing stock value, better financial results, lower risks, and more engaged workforces than other companies. Read more ›

Extreme weather, midwestern droughts, record commodity prices and global economic instability are only a few of the sustainability challenges facing business. As governments prove unable to respond, society looks to companies to take greater responsibility in implementing solutions. Havas Media Lab’s Global Report, which surveys 50,000 customers across 14 countries, found that nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in solving these issues (an increase of 15% from 2010). Only 28% of respondents felt that companies today are working as hard as they should to solve the big social and environmental challenges people care about. Trust in corporations is at an all-time low. Edelman’s Global Trust Barometer 2012 found that CEOs, as sources of information, are trusted only by 24% of the population.

In the last century, companies felt that the responsible way to contribute, and perhaps buy consumer goodwill was to create a corporate foundation and give money to community charities, libraries, art museums and symphonies. There’s nothing wrong with such giving, but it’s not going to save the world. Read more ›

More than seven million Californians live within 50 miles of the San Onofre nuclear plant, which was abruptly shut down after safety inspectors discovered radioactive steam leaking at the facility in late January. The unexpected closure of San Onofre raises legitimate concerns about the safe operation of nuclear plants. To further complicate matters, both of California’s aging nuclear plants — San Onofre and Diablo Canyon — are located near active fault lines, greatly jeopardizing the safety of millions of Californians in the event of an earthquake comparable to the one that caused multiple meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

There is, however, one upside of San Onofre’s indefinite closure. Now, state policymakers have a pivotal opportunity to significantly expand the use of distributed renewable energy resources to offset San Onofre’s lost generation capacity. A shift to distributed solar, wind and biomass energy generation would prove cost-effective for California ratepayers and enhance grid reliability should future outages at nuclear plants take place.

In fact, reliance on San Onofre nuclear plant has proven exorbitantly costly for Californians. Southern California Edison (SCE), the majority owner of the plant, charges ratepayers about $54 million per monthfor San Onofre, even now, as the plant provides no services whatsoever. Furthermore, ratepayers funded a$671 million replacement of the plant’s ailing steam generators just two years ago — the very same generators that are now leaking, forcing the plant to shut down. Read more ›

Why Give a Damn: In a world in trouble, entrepreneurs are our best hope of implementing solutions to the crises facing us and bringing prosperity to our communities.

On a planet beset with recession, erosion of all major ecosystems, the climate crisis, and political instability, it is clear that governments are incapable of implementing needed solutions, large companies are committed to preserving their incumbency, and citizens too unorganized to respond effectively.

Governments are high-centered, wheels spinning pathetically in thin air. The recent UN meeting, Rio+20, was supposed to be a world summit of global leaders. Mr. Obama didn’t even bother to attend. Many government delegations “bracketed” language agreed to 20 years ago at the first Rio Earth Summit – meaning that they no longer agree to abide by even those weak commitments. Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, a periodic report from scientists around the world, made clear that many of the earth’s ecosystems are tipping into collapse i. The International Energy Agency and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (traditional boosters of unlimited growth) both recently warned that the world has locked in a 2°C rise in global temperatures. If world leaders fail to implement climate protection by 2017 it will become impossible to prevent locking in a 6°C increase – a driver of climate change that is likely not survivable by life as we know it. Extreme droughts in 2012, likely to be the hottest year ever in recorded history, wiped out the Midwestern American corn crop – leading to a doubling in the cost of that food staple, exacerbating the 60 year drought that now threatens famine for 18 million people across the North of Africa.Read more ›

With Congress paralyzed late last year, President Barack Obama decided to assert his authority more aggressively on a number of issues: “If Congress refuses to act, I’ve said that I’ll continue to do everything in my power to act without them.” He coined a slogan: “We Can’t Wait“.

Global climate change certainly falls into the “we can’t wait” category. It’s a very bad influence on things we care about — a healthy economy, affordable food, protection from natural disasters, lower taxes, control of federal spending, and the safety of the nation’s infrastructure, to name a few. That should lift global warming to the top of the candidates’ platforms and the next president’s agenda.

So, when the first presidential debate takes place for Oct. 3 in Denver with a focus on domestic issues, somebody should ask the candidates this question:

Top climate experts are saying that global climate change will increase the likelihood we’ll see much more extreme weather in the future, even more severe than the droughts, floods, wildfires and heat waves we’re seeing today. Let’s assume that the Congress remains deadlocked next year on the climate issue. What will you do as president to address the risk that these experts are correct? Read more ›

Among political insiders in Washington, the conventional wisdom is that action on global climate change is a dead issue for the foreseeable future. But that need not, and should not, be the case.

The atmospheric thermostat isn’t on hold while we wait for a better political moment. And outside the beltway where voters are dealing with drought, floods, fires and heat waves — and soon, higher food prices — the right political moment may already have arrived. What remains is for our current and prospective elected leaders to seize it.

That might not be as difficult as some think. In a poll last March by George Mason University and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 82 percent of respondents said they had personally experienced one or more extreme weather events during the previous year; more than one in three Americans said they had been personally harmed by extreme weather. A Gallup poll the same month found that 77 percent of Americans say they are “personally worried” about global warming. The well-documented risk is that these impacts will grow much more severe if we don’t address them.

At this point in the campaign, neither Gov. Romney nor President Obama has said much about the issue. It may be an uncomfortable topic for them. A year ago, Gov. Romney acknowledged anthropogenic global warming and said “it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases.” Several months later, he flip-flopped without apology. Read more ›

All are making the business case for sustainability and employee engagement. And they are doing so by empowering their employees, unifying company and employee values, and collaborating internally and externally. As part of this month’s guest editorship of the July Issue in Focus on employee engagement, we received case stories from Levi Strauss & Co, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Aveda, which are using these practices to achieve their goals.

Levi’s uses engagement to break a “dirty little habit”

Becca Prowda, senior manager of Community Affairs at Levi Strauss & Co., is a woman on a mission. Two missions, to be exact: corporate social responsibility, and wearing her jeans at least five times before washing them. Read more ›

Sustainability is more than just a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) checklist or making a commitment to reduce carbon emissions. It spurs innovation, creates new ways of delivering services, and often comes from ideas by employees at every level of an organization.

Employees are the ones who enable a company to reach its sustainability goals. Do employees turn off computers after work? Do they feel empowered to act on inefficiencies that they encounter? Do they see sustainability as a part of their job? Are they motivated? If the answer is no, then the sustainability policy is nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Companies often start their sustainability engagement by creating a cross-functional ‘green team’ that acts as a catalyst for their programs. This approach can yield phenomenal results but, more often than not, the enthusiasm gained from the initial quick wins dwindles and teams soon lose momentum and suffer from burnout.

How then do you continue to motivate employees around sustainability? Here are a few tips on how to use web 2.0 tactics to bolster your sustainability engagement programs:

Create an environment of trust

Many companies ban social media use (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) at the workplace, worrying that employees will be distracted by photos of weekend vacations or waterskiing squirrel videos. Yet when it comes to engaging employees around a specific initiative, Read more ›

The diverse crises that the planet faces will only be solved when companies and communities implement authentic and innovative sustainability practices. It is therefore encouraging that there are an increasing number of colleges and universities now including sustainability as part of their campus management programs and curriculum.

Are these programs effective enough to create the next generation of thought leaders our world needs? The answer is, “No. Not yet.”

A good start is underway, however. Pressure from companies, students, and ranking organizations is forcing colleges and universities to embrace sustainability.

The business community is demanding candidates with sustainability training. Accenture found that over 93 percent of CEO’s see sustainability as crucial to business success, with 88 percent stating it needs to be fully embedded into their strategy and operations. Read more ›

In the olympics of living, there used to be a moment when an older generation “passed the torch” to the next generation in line.

In his inaugural speech a half-century ago, John Kennedy declared “The Torch has been passed to a new generation”.

Washington Post columnist David Broder used the same phrase when Bill Clinton became the first baby-boomer to be elected President of the United States, shaped by influences far different than his predecessors experienced during World War II.

After the disenchanted class pitched their tents in the streets last year, journalist Gregory Stanford wrote: “The nation’s Occupy movement has picked up the torch that Martin Luther King Jr. once carried to light the path to justice.” National Review blogger Mark Steyn used the same phrase last December in an analysis of events in Egypt.

But today as the leading edge of the baby-boom generation reaches the traditional torch-passing age, the tradition is obsolete. The mores, norms, policies and behaviors of past generations have left the torch in far too poor a condition to pass in good conscience. Insofar as we can fix it, we all need to get a grip: Baby Boomers as well as Generations X, Y and Z. Read more ›

Our very own Bill Becker attended Rio+20, the United Nations sustainability summit in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil this June. Bill attended to display the Future We Want (FWW) in the form of a visual media exhibit—this project has become a global platform calling for positive solutions for a sustainable future. Bill also went as a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s international Task Force on Climate Change, which at the conference, issued a detailed report on current climate science; described the consequences of inaction; and offered several recommendations to world leaders. Bill gave several speeches, including an address to the World Youth Congress, which met just before Rio+20 began.

Returning home from the 2009 U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Bill said, “After the failure at Copenhagen, people in the environmental movement were not only disappointed, they were depressed.” However, the mood from Rio+20 held more optimism. “Rio+20 also ended with frustration, but the mood was far different. It was as if the tens of thousands of people who hoped for a better result said, ‘Okay, our leaders won’t lead. No surprise. We’ll just have to go home and do it ourselves.’ There was a feeling of resolve.” Read more ›

Natural Capitalism Solutions worked with Aveda to develop a custom e-Solution that enables salon owners across the world to implement sustainable salon practices. Using a dynamic online platform, NCS created a visually compelling solution that provides practical guidance and tools in a user-friendly format that salon owners are comfortable with. Using this tool, Aveda salons will be able to lower their costs and implement industry-leading practices, while further aligning themselves with the Aveda brand.

Aveda’s sustainable salon is brought to life within an interactive web platform designed by NCS. The platform contains renderings of a physical salon that visually demonstrates the sustainability improvements that can be made. The platform showcases cost effective sustainability measures for the salon and includes straightforward instructions and supplementary tools to make implementation easy. Throughout the process, salons learn about energy and cost savings associated with each measure in addition to benefits to marketing and the customer experience. Salon owners also have access to a goal-setting tool that demonstrates potential savings and which specific measures the salon should focus on based on their unique situation.

Using the sustainable salon guide created by NCS, Aveda will be able to implement sustainability across their diverse network of network operations, cutting costs for their business owners and increasing the sustainability performance of their company as a whole.

Eco-Products is a leading supplier of recycled and compostable disposable goods. Sustainability is core to Eco-Products’ selling proposition, yet their large network of sales reps and brokers struggled to communicate the sustainability aspects of products to a diverse set of customers across the country.

In order to leverage their sustainability investments in the market, Eco-Products hired Natural Capitalism Solutions to develop a robust training program for their sales team. The training provides sales staff with a base understanding of sustainability and the sustainable attributes of products, in addition to practical training in how to communicate sustainability information to diverse customers. By completing the NCS training, the Eco-Products sales team is better equipped to capitalize on the company’s sustainability investments, strengthening their sales pitch and increasing revenue.

“The sales training materials that Natural Capitalism produced not only work to get our brand a higher degree of visibility in the field, but they work to make our sales force the most informed and educated about sustainability in our industry. With a complex offering such as ours and a brand centered around sustainability, these tools not only provide a much needed service, but they are designed to help our sales team increase revenue, and give our team the credibility and professionalism they need in today’s market to product more effectively. We are delighted with the work of Natural Capitalism and excited to expand on it in time to turn this project into one of the primary drivers of sustainability education within our organization.”

On the eve of the United Nations’ Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, a task force created by Mikhail Gorbachev urged international delegates to “face the urgent realities” of global climate change.

The appeal came as the Gorbachev’s Climate Change Task Force issued a detailed report on climate change, the result of two years of research and peer review. By the time the report was issued, it had been signed by nearly 40 experts and high-level public officials ranging from scientists and economists to philosophers and former heads of state.

Within hours of its release, the report was endorsed by an international organization of mayors from 164 cities in 21 countries, representing 170 million people. Read more ›

It was 20 years ago this month that Severn Suzuki, then 12, gave the speech of her life. As she stood on the podium at the first Earth Summit, Severn’s admonition to dignitaries from 178 nations also became the speech of her generation.

The topic was sustainable development. The place was Rio de Janeiro, where heads of state, delegates and negotiators assembled to consider how humankind and the rest of the natural world could co-exist, to the everlasting benefit of both.

Ten years later, Severn recalled the experience and assessed the world’s progress in a column for TIME magazine:

“I am only a child,” I told them. “Yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this would be. In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.”

I spoke for six minutes and received a standing ovation. Some of the delegates even cried. I thought that maybe I had reached some of them, that my speech might actually spur action. Now, a decade from Rio, after I’ve sat through many more conferences, I’m not sure what has been accomplished. My confidence in the people in power and in the power of an individual’s voice to reach them has been deeply shaken.

Later this month, international negotiators and heads of state will meet again in Rio to assess progress over the last two decades and to discuss new commitments. The theme of Rio+20, as the conference is unofficially called, is “The Future We Want” – an invocation, perhaps, of Buckminster Fuller’s observation that “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”

Severn’s name today is Severn Cullis-Suzuki. She is married and has her own child. If she were invited to the podium at Rio+20, what would she say? We asked her. Green Cross International taped her answer for The Future We Want project. Read more ›

The global economy rests on a knife’s edge. The financial crash of 2008 caused 50 trillion dollars and 80 million jobs to evaporate.1 And the wreck is not over. This article describes the major challenges facing the economy and proposes solutions.

The Challenges

The International Labor Organization sets forth the following grim statistics:2

Studies of 69 of 118 countries with available data show an increase in the percentage of people reporting worsening living standards in 2010 compared to 2006.

People in half of 99 countries surveyed say they have little confidence in their national governments.

In 2010, more than 50 percent of people in developed countries lacked decent jobs (in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain, it is more than 70 percent).

The share of profit in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased in 83 percent of countries studied between 2000 and 2009, but productive investment stagnated globally during the same period.

Food price volatility doubled from 2006 through 2010 compared to the prior five years. Financial investors benefit from this; food producers do not. Remember, it was a food riot that touched off the Arab Spring in Tunisia.

Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz observed, “Unless we have a better understanding of the causes of the crisis, we can’t implement an effective recovery strategy. And, so far, we have neither.” His diagnosis: ideological driven release of the financial sector from the regulations that had prevented collapse since the 1930s, bubble-fueled consumption, and growing inequality. His prescription: promote energy conservation, reduce inequality, reform the global financial system to drive productive investment instead of a buildup of cash, and strong government expenditures to aid restructuring.3

At the April 2012 Fortune Brainstorm Green conference, Nick Aster spoke briefly with Hunter and they reflected on the nature of the conference and how the business case for sustainability is finally hitting home.

The National Audubon Society recently recognized our very own Hunter Lovins as an influential environmental pioneer. Hunter was chosen as one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious Rachel Carson Award, which honors visionary women whose dedication, talent and energy have advanced environmental educational locally and globally. The Award ceremony, which was emceed by NBC News environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson, took place May 22, 2012 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Allison Rockefeller, the Founding Chair of the Rachel Carson Award Council, stressed its value as “one of the most coveted awards for American women in the environmental and conservation movement.” She emphasized the social significance and longevity of the Award, noting, “Women have played an enormous role in environmental and conservation leadership and this award recognizes and celebrates their work, and influences a younger generation of girls and women to do the same.”

The Award is named after Rachel Carson, author of the seminal Silent Spring and a forerunner of the modern environmental movement. This year’s Award was particularly special, as 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication. Established in 2004, the Rachel Carson Award has raised more than $1,000,000 to back Audubon’s Women in Conservation Program as well as the organization’s campaign to protect the Long Island Sound.

In addition to Hunter, the Reverend Canon Sally Bingham and Janette Sadik-Khan were also recognized: Bingham for her leadership of the Interfaith Power & Light campaign, a popular religious response to global warming; and Sadik-Khan for her spearheading of a major overhaul of public transportation in New York City to make it safer, flexible, and more sustainable. Past recipients of the Award include actress and environmental activist Sigourney Weaver; founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, Majora Carter; and producer of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Laurie David.

Last February I was surprised to receive an invitation from the Royal Government of Bhutan to join His Excellency, Jigmi Thinley, the Bhutanese Prime Minister and more than 600 leaders from civil society, business, governments, academic institutions and global experts for a High Level Meeting at the United Nations on Happiness and Well Being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm.

Many of you have heard my rants against the bloated UN bureaucracy, but for some reason this invitation caught my attention.

And rightly so.

April 2, as I arrived in New York, it was clear that the Bhutanese are competent, far more than typical UN functionaries. They excel at hospitality and I believe they’re serious about making the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) amount to something. From being presented with a strikingly beautiful little pin of a Bhutanese flower for my jacket to the Prime Minister’s kickass opening and closing speeches, the Bhutanese did it right. And assembled a stellar cast to help them. This was a meeting I’m proud to have been a part of.

My old friend Robert Costanza and his very competent team were a key part. Reading the preparatory papers, I’d a hunch that they had the fingerprints of some genuine experts, and they do. The Bhutanese had brought Bob, the Prince of Wales (via video); Vandana Shiva; Mathis Wackernagel; and Joseph Stiglitz, as well as Gifford Pinchot, founder of Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where I’m honored to be faculty; a really impressive gathering of world religious leaders; and others. Read more ›

In our first piece from the “Run up to SB’12″ series, Hunter Lovins answers our questions around the economic implications of climate change, how organizations can use sustainability as an innovation platform, and how the business community can collaborate to create positive change.

Mike Hower: What do you think is the most pressing environmental threat facing our planet today? (and what do you foresee the implications being if these threats are not addressed?)

Hunter Lovins: Climate change. The OECD released a report this spring saying that if government leaders don’t take immediate action it will become impossible to prevent a global temperature increase of 6%. That’s not survivable.[i] If the OECD is saying this, it truly is a dire situation. Despite the fact that 80% of Americans believe climate change is real, and dire, and that it is urgent for us to take action to build an economy based on clean energy, the U.S. remains the only country that is denying climate change. We can’t even get a decent energy policy passed through Congress.

MH: What kind of revolutionary action needs to be taken to avoid global climate change devastation? Read more ›

On May 11, a group of children will face off against the Obama administration and the National Association of Manufacturers for the latest round of a David vs. Goliath battle in federal court.

The kids filed a lawsuit last year against the administration, arguing that common law requires governments to protect critical natural resources on behalf of current and future generations. In this case, the kids argue, the government has an inherent duty to protect the atmosphere from greenhouse gas emissions, and all of us from the impacts of global climate change.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Robert Wikins ruled that the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and several California businesses could intervene against the kids, based on the argument that limiting greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a “diminution or cessation of their businesses” — in other words, jeopardize their profit margins.

Sustainability is knocking at the door of every business, but why do so many small and mid-size American business owners deadbolt their minds to more sustainable practices?

Has it ever crossed your mind that they’re just naïve or stubborn or even ignorant?

Or is it we green advocates who are at fault?

Clinging to use of technical language alien to the conversation on mainstream America, many green business gurus are not reaching a general population. In these polarized times, how we communicate may even be driving our cause farther to the fringe.

As OgilvyEarth likes to put it, we need to “Shift sustainability from polar bears to people.”

While the nation’s attention has been focused on ending one war (Afghanistan) and avoiding another (Iran), a different idea about national defense has been circulating lately among some of America’s thought leaders.

The idea is this: National defense isn’t only about containing foreign threats; it’s also about strengthening the fabric of society. In other words, sustainable development is a critical component of national security.

This isn’t a new thought, but new people are thinking it, including some whose job is to figure out how to prevent the foreign conflicts that end up costing U.S. lives and treasure.

Last spring, two influential military officers went public with the idea that sustainable development must be central to America’s global strategy. Marine Corps Col. Mark Mykleby and Navy Capt. Wayne Porter wrote that to thrive in this century’s “strategic ecology”, the United States must move from a global posture of containment designed to preserve the status quo to a posture of sustainability designed to build our strength at home and our credible influence abroad. They wrote the paper while serving as senior strategic advisors to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Read more ›

Triple Pundit
“Hunter Lovins is Still Optimistic About the Future of Sustainability in Business”

When I heard Hunter Lovins for the first time in 2006, I was left feeling like I’d just witnessed one of the best speakers the sustainable business movement has. To be frank, I thought her presentation was electrifying. Six years later I had the chance to listen to her on a Bard MBA event in New York and was happy to find that Lovins still rocks. Is it her profound knowledge? The loads of experience she has? Maybe the hat? I don’t know, but I do know that very few make the business case of sustainability in such a vivid and powerful way.

Lovins, who is joining the faculty of Bard College’s new MBA in Sustainability Program(a TriplePundit sponsor), set down last week to a conversation with Eban Goodstein, the Director of the Bard MBA in Sustainability and Bard Center for Environmental Policy. This talk was a chance not only to learn more about Lovins’ impressive biography, but also to explore with her the sustainability challenges we are facing. Read more ›

With a large sales staff that had no formal training in sustainability, Claudia needed to enhance their understanding of the environmental attributes of the company’s products so that they could sell them effectively. She observed,

“With a brand centered around sustainability, and a complex offering such as ours, we needed to tell our story with precision, but we realized our sustainability story was being lost in translation to the customer.”

Claudia and her team identified the knowledge, skills and attitudes her sales staff needed to communicate sustainability to customers. Realizing that a “Sustainability 101” approach wouldn’t suffice, the team built a series of interactive e-learning modules that distinguish the life-cycle characteristics of the company’s diverse product offering. The flexibility of the e-learning platform enabled the company to create updated online learning modules as new content becomes available. Read more ›

Here are some questions for the Occupiers, the Tea Party demonstrators, the people engaged in the Arab Spring and those around the world who are too hungry, too tired, too discouraged or too occupied with basic survival to protest.
These are questions, too, for the young people who will inherit the future we are setting in motion today, and the elders who are concerned about the world they are leaving their grandchildren.

Most of us want things to be better. We don’t want the kind of world we’ll get if we allow global climate change, resource conflicts, resource constraints, environmental degradation, overwhelming population growth, helter-skelter urbanization, war, social injustice and other looming problems to go unaddressed.

We have a pretty good idea what we should avoid. But what should we build?

We have incredible technologies and tools today – arguably all we need to create communities that are resource efficient, resilient, safe and prosperous while treading lightly on the environment. How would our lives be improved if we deployed the best sustainable development technologies and practices? How would it impact future generations?

Those questions are at the heart of a campaign called “The Future We Want“, announced this week by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations. The UN has chosen “The Future We Want” as the tagline of Rio+20, its international conference next June on sustainable development. Coming on the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit, the conference has symbolic importance. We hope it will have concrete significance, too. Read more ›

When House Speakers John Boehner said last week that his relationship with President Obama is like a conversation between “people from two different planets“, he identified a disconnect that extends well beyond the House and the White House.

We are two Americas headed for collision. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg touched upon it with his recent warning about the rising frustration of young people who have graduated college but cannot find jobs. The riots in Cairo could happen here, the mayor said, and he’s correct.

Several factors that triggered the Arab Spring are present in the United States today, including crony capitalism, political corruption, poverty and the unmet aspirations of the young. In neighborhood after neighborhood, and in home after repossessed home, the American dream is in shreds while the gap between rich and poor has become a canyon.

The people trying to wake us up to the realities of global warming have taken to calling themselves “climate hawks.” In the field of Republican presidential candidates, we are seeing a new breed emerge: climate chickens.

Once upon a time, America elected heroes to be President of the United States, some of them veterans of war, others who earned the title in office when they refused to run from tough issues.

Those were the good old days. Today national politics is dominated by personalities who in polite company might be called “differently principled.” There seems to be no issue on which they won’t reverse positions, deny the obvious, pander to special interests and even act against the best interests of the American people.

On climate change, for example — the most dangerous long-term threat in the world today — the viable candidates in the GOP presidential field, with the exception of Jon Huntsman, are showing a reckless disrespect for science and a callous insensitivity to the victims of weather-related disasters, present and future.

Let’s review. Front-runner Rick Perry has called global warming “one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight”. His chief science advisor apparently is his father. While he campaigned at the Iowa State Fair, somebody asked Perry about the drought that’s killing crops, cattle and family businesses in his own state.

This is the last in a series of posts on extreme weather events in the United States. Part 1 described the reactions of key political leaders. Part 2 detailed the “perfect storm” of increasing weather extremes combined with decreasing government ability to respond. This post discusses what communities can do to help themselves.

In the United States and much of the rest of the world, a climate-related train wreck is in the making. Extreme weather events are increasing, while weak economies and budget deficits are undermining the capacity of national governments to respond.

In the U.S., the infrastructure we’ve built to protect people from natural disasters is aging. Some of it is proving tragically inadequate to handle weather events now routinely described as biblical, unprecedented, historic, record-breaking and not seen before in our lifetimes.

Given the probability that the severity of today’s weather is a result of global climate change, we must anticipate that weird weather will continue, ranging from the slow strangulation of drought and shifting isotherms to the rapid trauma of floods, hurricanes, tornados and wildfires.

Do communities have any defense? The short answer is yes. There are some things the federal government can do to reduce our risk. There’s also a lot communities can and should do on their own.

National Action

At the top of the federal government’s agenda should be the goal to stop digging the hole we need to climb out of. Federal subsidies that promote greenhouse gas emissions should be repealed. So should federal programs that directly or indirectly encourage development in hazard areas. Everyone has ideas for how the billions of dollars of taxpayer oil subsidies should be redirected, but there’s urgency and poetic justice in using the money to help localities protect themselves from the consequences of carbon fuels.

This is the second in a three-part post. Part 1 describes how some key political leaders are reacting to today’s extreme weather events. Part 2 lays out some of the factors that are producing a perfect storm of vulnerability.

Whether or not we are ready to conclude that today’s extreme weather events are linked to global climate change, it would be utterly irresponsible for us to ignore the possibility.

Failing to minimize and manage the risk is a dereliction of duty to everyone who is vulnerable. That includes us all in one way or another, as victims or taxpayers. Ironically, our own practices over the last century have made us more vulnerable. For example:

False Security: We have spent billions of dollars on dams, levees and other structures to protect lives and property from floods, the most common natural disaster in the United States. These structures have saved lives, but they’ve also produced a deadly false sense of security.

The plane settles into its cruise altitude and I to writing – three hours to Chicago, swap planes, then eight to the Netherlands. Long night.

I’m bound east to consult for Royal Dutch Shell. No idea what they want from me, but I’ll be most interested to chat with them about their world-view. And to give em a piece of my mind. I would anyway, but now it’s a debt. As is this blog.

Once one of the world’s most progressive companies, the Shell I knew prospered under the able leadership of such Managing Directors as Bobby Reid and Sir Mark Moody Stuart, the last Managing Director for whom I consulted. Under these leaders, Shell was on an arc away from being an oil company to being a diversified energy provider, launching solar, wind, hydrogen, biofuels and efficiency divisions. It didn’t matter, for example, to Sir Mark that Shell did not have the proven reserves to long remain an oil company (and he was well aware that the world as we know it could not long survive Shell’s continuing to extract and enable us to burn fossil fuels.) If you are migrating away from oil, it’s a race to the future in which the first movers have the advantage. Under this vision Shell became the world’s largest company and the darling of the socially responsible investment crowd.

The term “perfect storm” is overused now, but it is the perfect metaphor for the violent relationship between people and the environment today. We are experiencing a convergence of factors that are putting us at great risk. For example:

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe.

The big public works projects we built to protect us from natural disasters over the past century may no longer be affordable or the best option.

The idea that we can bulldozer natural systems into submission and live wherever we wish has put millions of Americans in harms way.

Weather-related disasters are becoming a clear and present danger to security at home and abroad.

Our national leaders generally seem oblivious to this mounting danger, or in denial that it is real, allowing politics and flat-earth ideology to prevail over common sense.

Even if our politicians were willing to unify around a national response to extreme weather, budget problems have greatly diminished governments’ capacity to act.

In this three-part post, I’ll weave together data from a variety of sources and experts to explore whether we are ready to cope with nature’s new norm.Read more ›

The recent squall over SpongeBob SquarePants and his book about global climate change appears to have died down now. That’s a pity. Sometimes, it’s in the public interest to turn a squall into a hurricane…

Here’s the backstory, in case you missed it. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education sponsored an event to encourage kids to read books. One of the books at the event featured Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants on an “earth-friendly adventure.” As E&E reporter Jean Chemnick explained, SpongeBob’s sidekick Mr. Krabs…

…decides to pump enough greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere to bring on “endless summer” so his ocean-front swimming pool will always be full of paying customers. The plot backfires, however, when he and SpongeBob realize they have created an environmental disaster.

Fox News, television’s equivalent of a playground bully, beat up on Nickelodeon, the Education Department and by implication, SpongeBob. Fox commentator Gretchen Carlson complained that SpongeBob should have told kids climate change is “actually a disputed fact.” A spokesman for the Heritage Foundation piled on, saying SpongeBob had given us “an important reminder of why the federal government shouldn’t be involved in school curriculum.”

We in the United States are very familiar with energy wars. Our long-time national energy strategy, as former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart points out, is to send our children off to kill and be killed in foreign lands to protect our access to oil.

We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of that tragic policy. Welcome to the age of the Solar Soldier, where a photovoltaic cell is as important as an M-16 rifle.

For those of you who haven’t followed this notable development, here’s an account.

It has been widely reported that the U.S. armed forces are going green. The Department of Defense (DoD) has resolved to cut its energy intensity 30% by 2015, obtain a quarter of its energy from renewable resources by 2020, cut petroleum use 20% by 2015, significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and power jets and ships with biofuels. Each of the four branches of the armed services has set its own green goals, including a push to eliminate waste and achieve net-zero energy and water consumption at Army and Navy installations.

At the request of our students, we were happy to invite Hunter Lovins to deliver the keynote address at the 2011 Bren School of Environmental Science & Management Commencement exercises. What an inspired choice. At the Bren School, we were already well aware of Hunter’s important and visionary work and her standing as a highly sought-after consultant. Some of our faculty members had met her previously. But you can never really know how a resume as impressive as Hunter’s will translate into a speech delivered from a grand dais set above a large crowd. Will it be arcane, obtuse, self-indulgent? Will the speaker connect with the audience? Will her words resonate? Will those who listen be moved and inspired? We needn’t have wondered ― or worried.

In the couple of hours that Hunter was at Bren before the event began, she wandered here and there, treating everyone she met to her frank gaze and engaging openness. Eventually, she took a seat at a student chair-desk in the corner of a noisy room, and, as faculty robed for the ceremony, jotted down some thoughts for her talk. It is always telling when someone can draft a speech in a few minutes, in pencil, on a couple of pieces of notebook paper. It usually indicates a person whose message, mission and life are in unison and emanating from a familiar and deeply felt foundation of beliefs and experiences. That was the case with Hunter. Her talk was fierce. It was fiery. And it was funny. As she moved through it, she integrated her tremendous knowledge of sustainability issues in plain language from which the last obfuscating flourish had been removed. Her message resounded: Have courage, be willing to fail, step up, follow your own path, do something that fuels your passion and feeds your soul. Don’t settle for a job, but rather, pursue your calling. Embrace life. Do it now.

The audience was moved, and the standing ovation was instant and spontaneous. We really could not have asked for a better, more engaged speaker or one whose values and message were more in line with the Bren School. It set the tone for a great day.

Jennifer Purcell Deacon
Assistant Dean of Development
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
University of California Santa Barbara

Here is a trick question: Now that the 2012 election campaign has begun, should you vote Republican or Democrat?

The correct answer: Neither of the above. In this election, maybe more than ever, it should be courage that counts, not party affiliation.

It’s the tough issues in tough times that are the best tests of courage — and right now, few issues are tougher in American politics than confronting global climate change. It requires that we stand up against godzilla vested interests and say goodbye to a carbon economy which has served us so long that no American alive today remembers life without it.

Whatever else we might say about Big Oil in the United States, we have to give the industry credit for one thing: It has mastered the art of scamming us with a perfectly straight face.

The scam has been underway for decades. This year’s example is the debate about repealing $21 billion in federal subsidies for big oil companies over the next decade. To their credit, President Obama and several Democrats in Congress are pushing the idea.

Oil executives have launched a counteroffensive reminiscent of Gordon Gekko’s argument that “greed is good”. Requiring taxpayers to subsidize America’s biggest oil companies is in the best interest of the country, they say, and anyone who disagrees is playing politics.

ExxonMobil, for example, has issued a statement that President Obama and congressional Democrats are engaging in “political theatre” on this issue. Perhaps. But the real plot line is that big oil companies are fighting once again to keep largesse they don’t need and the nation can’t afford. Here are some examples of the time-tested arguments we’re hearing from Big Oil:

Eliminating their subsidies will force oil companies to increase the cost of gasoline. Even some oil executives acknowledge this is not true. Unless the industry uses subsidy reform as an excuse to gouge consumers, reducing its tax breaks will not affect energy prices. The handful of subsidies under scrutiny here are the proverbial drop in the oil barrel. They are a fraction of the special favors oil companies receive from the federal government, usually at taxpayer expense. And oil company revenues are so high, even counting the cyclic nature of the market, that subsidy reform will not make a difference in energy prices.

In response to a lawsuit that argues greenhouse gas emissions are a “public nuisance”, three of Congress’s most active opponents of responsible climate policy filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court last February. Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Ed Whitfield and Sen. James Inhofe told the Justices it is inappropriate and unnecessary for courts to get involved in America’s climate policy.

Upton chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; Whitfield chairs the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power; and Inhofe is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. All three are prominent Republican opponents of climate action, working among other things to scuttle EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

To be fair, it’s not just Republicans who are blocking Congress from acting against climate change. Nineteen Democrats in the House voted for Inhofe’s and Upton’s bill to strip EPA of its regulatory authority. Several Senate Democrats also voted for the bill, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who complains “EPA’s overreach is destroying jobs in my state and all over the country”. (For an excellent report on Congress’s effort to “repeal climate science”, see Remapping Debate.)

If the courts agree to consider the “iMatter” movement’s atmospheric trust lawsuits (see Part 1 of this post), here are some of the arguments we can expect from opponents of climate action, whose delicate phrasing makes inaction sound like action. The italicized portions are direct quotes from the brief that Upton, Whitfield and Inhofe filed in the public nuisance lawsuit, American Power v. Connecticut:

Argument: The courts don’t have to act because members of Congress have been actively involved in the legislative process relating to climate change policies and regulations.

Reality Check: By “actively involved in the legislative process”, the three Republicans mean opponents are using the process to block meaningful action on climate change. So far, they’ve been successful.

Last February, three Republican leaders in Congress filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that when it comes to global climate change, judges and Justices should mind their own business.

The courts are about to get a different message. Starting on May 4, young people in the United States and several other countries will file petitions and lawsuits in an effort to force public officials into protecting us all from climate change.

The international legal intervention – the sponsors call it guerrilla law – is believed to be the first of its kind. It is being organized by Our Children’s Trust in Eugene, Oregon. It’s part of a broader campaign that will include “iMatter” marches by young people around the world May 7-14, the brainchild of 16-year-old Alec Loorz of California.

The Designers Accord Sustainability in 7 video series delivered a daily dose of design inspiration by today’s leading sustainability experts. Join in the conversation as they share 7 things every designer should consider when integrating sustainability into design practice. Hunter Lovins’ video from her Ranch in Longmont, CO:

Thoughtful (and thought-provoking) videos from 17 of 2011s most respected sustainability experts. Learned that “by design” starts with value thinking from William McDonough, the realities of sustainable business from Hunter Lovins and Lisa Gansky, that diversity creates resilience from Nathan Shedroff and that each of us should look to nature for design solutions from Janine Benyus. Each of our 17 presenters gave us a unique view on directions in sustainable design and what it means for makers, thinkers, consumers and producers today.

In case you missed any of the Sustainability in 7 videos, we’ve created an easy index of all our experts below! Bookmark and share the Sustainability in 7 homepage. All the videos will live at core77.com/sustainabilityin7 for your easy reference.

For our 30th anniversary issue, I interviewed three pioneers in the green building movement: Bill McDonough, USGBC President and CEO Rick Fedrizzi, and Hunter Lovins. It turns out all three of them share a common approach to environmentalism. They engage with business, rather than confront it. I’d call it second (or maybe third) wave activism. And no one has been at it longer than Lovins, who in 1982 co-founded (with Amory Lovins, her ex-husband) the Rocky Mountain Institute. Today Lovins serves as executive director of Natural Capitalist Solutions, a non-profit dedicated to helping businesses, governments and civic organizations embrace sustainability. She is co-author (with Boyd Cohen) of a new book,Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change. The following is an edited transcript from her insightful conversation.

Martin C. Pedersen: You say the “three-Ls” used by the environmental movement—legislation, litigation, and lobbying—aren’t working. What does work, you argue, is engaging with business. But we’re nowhere near a tipping point for industry and climate change action. In fact the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dead set against any kind of carbon legislation— Read more ›

Dunno how much longer I can do this…. Nashville’s in my taillights, but at this rate it’s not clear that I’ll make Colorado.

Our little Embraer jet’s slamming through the sorts of clouds that eat airplanes. Somewhere over Oklahoma. Can only imagine the violence below.

This is the sort of day that makes one wonder if it’s worth it – this life of going down the road.

I’m tired. It’s been a grueling run. Then the plane was two hours late into Nashville cause storms wracked Chicago. Where I was two days ago. After New York and DC in the two days prior. I’ll be back in Chicago early next week. With Colorado and Seattle in Between. Book launches all.

Great people make it bearable. Ah, the myth of Southern hospitality never left Nashville. Add to that some really exciting work on sustainability: on city design, including spongy landscaping to absorb the increasingly violent storms and flooding – Nashville flooded badly a year or so back and now takes water management seriously. On creating sustainability programs at conservative religious schools. On smart transit planning – the Mayor rides the bus to work several days a week. On LEED certification of buildings – they kept pointing out LEED Platinum, Gold, Silver buildings. On local food production – we dined two nights ago at Tayst, an experience that rivals the finest in New York, San Francisco, London…anywhere. The chef, who sources 90% of the food locally, also volunteers to bring healthy nutrition to local public schools. Nashville also specializes mixed use, mixed race developments bringing neighborliness to once blighted sections of town – waiting for a table in the always popular Burger Up at 9:30 the night after my speech at Lipscomb University, a most scholarly African American gentleman joining his wife already inside regaled our group of students, professionals, and city officials about the history of the neighborhood.

Investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy will generate jobs and help build strong companies, communities, and countries. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley concluded, “All states of the union stand to gain in terms of net employment from the implementation of a portfolio of clean energy policies at the federal level.”

The new green energy economy will generate new manufacturing businesses, jobs retrofitting existing buildings, opportunities to build and manage the new decentralized energy system, the ability to revitalize farm income from biofuels, wind farms, etc. Traditional economists who claim that acting to protect the climate is costly should be challenged to show why unleashing the new energy economy will not trigger, as former President Clinton asserts, the greatest economic boom since World War II. Read more ›

It’s a thrill to launch a book, and standing room only at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco is not a bad way to do it. That’s the honor that a lively audience gave me Tuesday. With my dear friend Joel Makower, editor of GreenBiz, presiding, Climate Capitalism made its formal debut to sustainability thought leaders like Gil Friend, public servants like Jay Eickenhorst, former Presidio students (and enduring friends), my Madrone colleagues and the bright membership of the Club. Joel introduced me to describe the book’s thesis: Believe in climate change or don’t – it really doesn’t matter if you think the climate crisis is real or not, because acting in ways to solve it is just better business. So let’s stop arguing over the science and get on with making money – oh, and you’ll solve global warming while you’re at it. Panelists Bruce Klafter of Applied Materials, profiled in the book, and David Chen of Equilibrium Capital, backed my claims, describing how their companies are profiting handsomely even in a down economy from rolling out the new energy economy.

To Joel’s probing questions of if all this is true, why isn’t it busting out everywhere, they answered, “It is!” I pointed out that a recent Harris Interactive survey of the Fortune 1,000 found that although corporate executives have a pervasive belief is that no one is implementing sustainability, 88% of the companies answering said that they’re doing it – they just believe they’re an anomaly.

Joel is such a skillful moderator, and from his decisive three raps to open the hour recorded for NPR broadcast til the closing gavel, time sped by. Questions were engaged, the knowledgeable and articulate panel laid out a wealth of content and the Commonwealth Club sold out of books.

The CEOs of the companies implementing greater sustainability in their business practices may not recognize it, but they are following the principles set forth a decade ago in this book’s predecessor, Natural Capitalism. These principles have proved to be some of the best guides a company can use as it embraces sustainability in its own operations. They also represent a roadmap to a sustainable economy.

The first principle, buying time by using all resources as efficiently as possible, is cost-effective today and is the best way to address many of the worst problems facing humankind while delivering premium returns on investments. There are many smart companies implementing this principle, from measuring and managing their carbon footprints with the Carbon Disclosure Project, to Mi Rancho Tortilla’s saving $175,000 a year by implementing efficiency measures because it knows it has to do so to meet Walmart’s Sustainability Scorecard. It and the other small businesses participating in Natural Capitalism Solutions’ “Solutions at the Speed of Business” program are enjoying returns on investment ranging from 100 percent to more than 600 percent. Read more ›

For roughly three decades, L. Hunter Lovins has been a clear and provocative voice on business and sustainability — first at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which she co-founded in 1982 with Amory Lovins, and later through her own organization, Natural Capitalism Solutions.

Along the way, she has been a prolific writer, speaker, educator and a globally recognized consultant on sustainability to companies, governments and others.

The first ever copy of Climate Capitalism arrived today. Margo Boteilho, our accountant, came in with the mail. I was giving an interview on my new book Climate Capitalism with Robert Colangelo of Greensense. It was my second interview of the day: this morning my co-author, Dr Boyd Cohen, and I did an hour long webinar for Net Impact on the book, and I was focused on remembering what I’d said two hours before and what this new audience hadn’t yet heard – one of the tricky bits of doing multiple interviews in the same day.

Margo slipped into my office and ceremoniously laid a large brown envelope on my desk.

It didn’t occur to me to open it til she peeked back in after I’d hung up, and pointed at it, grinning. I shrugged – big brown envelopes arrive each day: books people are sharing with me, new reports….

“Open it,” she nudged.
Hmmm, started to feel a bit like a party. Well, OK, the pressing crush of e-mails could wait, I guess….

It snowed in Berkeley last night. Thought I saw some on a car going past. Then there it was, lining the verges of Interstate 80.

OK, it’s still winter for a few more days…

My tired mind didn’t register at first. The evening I’d been going to spend snuggled into the cozy little home in the Marin Headlands where I’m camped this week had disappeared into work. Walking to the kitchen down the hall from our new Madrone Project office in the David Brower Center in Berkeley, I spotted John Knox, Executive Director of Earth Island Institute down in the lobby. John’s an old friend, from the days when Dave was still alive and running Earth Island. So I sauntered down to say howdy and found myself in the midst of an about to happen event honoring Aileen Mioko Smith, and raising money for Green Action, her gallant grassroots group in Japan that has been fighting the nuclear plants there, warning of just the sort of disaster that now threatens her island.

On finding me standing in their lobby, the various activists asked if I would speak at the event, describing how Japan, and the U.S. could craft a future free of nuclear power that still heads off the climate crisis.

Wow. Sure. That is part of the magic of the Brower Center – a LEED Platinum building full of organizations working for a future for all living things. Such events happen here most every day.

It’s a long way from Des Moines to Colorado. We rose early – time-zone scrambled circadian rhythms being useful for something – and headed west.

The morning started grimly though, as logging on to check the status of the crippled nuke in Japan brought the breaking news of the explosion.
Dammit, why have humans persisted in such stupidity? Nuclear is an exceedingly expensive way to boil water, and as this week’s nasty news has shown, remains vulnerable to the caprice of nature. My tweet querying this brought a reply of “Greed.” My friend April wrote, “Some expect the radiation to reach the Western U.S. Coast in 3 days from when it exploded. …Exploding nuke plants, oil spills… Onsite solar and wind are explosion- and spill-free. They’re healthier for humans, our earth, workers and our economy. This is why you should support renewable energy. Your kids would.” Martina added, “The shortsighted focus on immediate profits supporting the so called growth combined with a faulty sense of security in the face of unpredictable and a lack of understanding/acceptance of possible consequences.” Michael summed it up, “There is no justification for the construction of new nuclear facilities of any kind. Radiation, the gift that keeps on giving.” Good time to remember the stalwart folks at Nuclear Information and Resource Service, www.nirs.org. Even when most of the rest of us forgot that the industry continues to lobby congress for more of your and my tax dollars to support a technology that can no longer even compete with solar. What? Check out last July’s article in the New York Times, “Nuclear Energy Loses Cost Advantage.”

At least e-mail posts to the Balaton list-serve (the global network of sustainability experts founded years ago by Dana and Dennis Meadows, and now one of the best collection of experts anywhere) brought news that our Japanese colleagues are all accounted for. My heart goes out to those cold and alone, who’ve lost it all. Note to self: time on returning home to make yet another donation.

With nothing we could do about it, Steve Wilton, Robbie Noiles and I headed west. Swapping stories and strategies for our work training companies, communities and citizens to profiting from sustainability, we ate down the states. There’s something soothing in hours of companionable silence and farmland rolling by, til Rob exclaimed, “Whoa look at that!”

The sky was chevroned by thousands, hundreds of thousands of birds. They littered pastures, graying the Nebraska cornfields and crowding the ponds.

Cranes. Sandhill cranes. We’d blundered into the spring migration of these creatures who since prehistoric times have gathered here, half a million of em, the State website explained on my i-Pad.

We had to stop and marvel at the sound and sight of this ancient ritual, a sky alive with the chattering, gabbing, whirring of these and millions of geese, ducks, and other feathered fellow migrants.

Just as the birds gather there to fatten themselves for their onward travels, we stopped into Ole’s Big Game Bar in Paxton, Nebraska. A bit of graffiti in the restroom whimpered that the author was hiding out in there cause it was the only place that didn’t have stuffed animal heads staring at her.

Today’s frontline is Iowa. Natural Capitalism has been working with various communities here to enhance the profitability of their small businesses through a for-profit venture that some folk in California has asked us to help create a year or so ago. It’s done OK, that little business, running half a dozen “sustainability learning circles,” with small business leaders in California, Colorado and Iowa. On paper, it stands to make a great deal of money.

But last fall I began to question whether this was the best model. Nothing wrong with the circles but I became concerned that the model wouldn’t scale. Our people can’t be in every little community across the country, let alone around the world. That’s the reason we created the S@SB tool in the first place: take the knowledge that’s in the heads of the NCS staff who work with the Walmart’s of the world, and make it affordably available to mainstreet. A labor of love by NCS and the Scottish-based, digital learning company, Cogbooks, S@SB works. The companies that are using it are cutting their use of energy, their waste, engaging their employees, and perhaps most important, driving their profitability. Why most important? Because this is what will get mainstreet to drive the implementation of sustainability. For too long, sustainability has been sold as a moral imperative, as an environmentalist agenda. Now, I’ve nothing against morality, but if we want this to sweep the world, it’s got to appeal across the political spectrum, and be something that people of all points of view want to do because it meets their own needs, not the pleasure of some activist.

A block from Paddington Station in London is the Frontline Club, a haven for journalists and NGO activists who work on the front lines around the world. In its chic restaurant hang photos from wars its founders covered. And the original of the solitary man facing down a tank in Tiananmen Square.

I belong, having worked on front lines, times past, in places like Afghanistan, and stay there whenever in London, curling into the club room upstairs, with its rickety chairs, delicious whisky and the best mutton pie anywhere.

Wars proliferate and the club was packed the other night for a presentation on the revolutions raging in the Middle East. But these days my frontlines are the global battlegrounds for whether there’s a future – the boardrooms and city halls where companies and communities are implementing more sustainable practices. I was in London keynoting a conference on corporate sustainability. And en route in service to the U.S. Ambassador to Finland, a dear friend and energy activist from Boulder. We delighted last night in his new WindStream installation whirring furiously away on the parapet of the US embassy overlooking the Baltic, as we discussed his work to green U.S. embassies around the globe.

Because these are the real frontlines today. Winging west now to begin a spring’s worth of speeches, consulting, teaching, and burning carbon to save the climate, I grin at the lovely evenings spent in London with my friend, Dr. Jim Thompson munching mutton pie at the club. We’ve built the Solutions@theSpeedofBusiness tool to enable mainstreet businesses to cut their carbon emissions profitably. And another evening downstairs with Jim and another friend, Tom Rivett Carnac of the Carbon Disclosure Project, as he revealed how much opportunity exists: the average sized companies who report to CDP can capture $30 to 40 million in savings profitably! Or meeting with the Mayor of Lahti, advising his staff on how to make this old Finnish industrial town a green city. Or lecturing with my partner Gregory Miller at the Ministry of Education on how our Madrone Project can bring affordable digital sustainability education to scale globally.

Hunter Lovins, the president and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, works with businesses, communities and governments to help them adopt sustainability principles and practices to deliver better value to their stakeholders. Lovins will give a keynote presentation at the 2011 Sustainable Opportunities Summit in Denver, April 11-12. Her new book,Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change, will be released in April.

Here are a few excerpts from a conversation with Lovins that will continue at the Summit.

Green Convene Strategies: Do you see organizations engaging with Natural Capitalism Solutions more because of market pressures or because it’s the “right thing” to do?

Hunter Lovins: It depends on the company. If you had told me five years ago that Wal-Mart would be the entity on the planet doing the most to drive sustainability, I would have bet eating my hat against it. But here we are. Wal-Mart sustainability scorecard is driving thousands of companies in its supply chain to come to organizations like Natural Capitalism and ask “What do we have to do to be considered a sustainable company?” Read more ›

Centuries of burning fossil fuels to power our modern lifestyles is warming our planet and changing our climate. Or not. So goes the debate. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, making your business more environmentally friendly is just good business, according to L. Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism Solutions and co-author of “Climate Capitalism” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), which is set for release in April.

“You don’t have to believe in the problem to believe in the solution,” said Ms. Lovins, who advises businesses, governments and civil organizations on the merits of sustainability — that is, adopting practices to use less energy, produce less waste and reduce their environmental footprints.

Natural Capitalism Solutions recently began a series of workshops and online tools aimed at small businesses to help them carry out green business practices. Ms. Lovins promises to return their money if the program doesn’t pay for itself in cost savings in the first year. A condensed version of a conversation with Ms. Lovins follows.

Jim Witkin: What do you say to the business owner who tells you the bottom line is a higher priority right now than going green?

Hunter Lovins: The bottom line should be the highest priority for small businesses — or you go out of business. But if you are not eliminating waste and implementing energy-efficiency measures; if you are not engaging your employees in the sustainability efforts that will motivate, excite, and inspire them; if you are not capturing the brand equity of operating as a responsible business; then you are just not doing good business.

For me, Hunter’s presentation was the highlight of the conference very inspiring and practical at the same time. . . it’s a good mix. The best singular moment of the conference as a whole was when Hunter entered the room during Van Jones’ keynote address and they saluted each other. It was a special moment in time.

Radical Energy Efficiency in Your Community
The REEL in Alaska Roadmap demonstrates how Alaskans in the Railbelt region of Anchorage, Juneau, and Homer can meet their electricity needs in 2025, using as little as 50% of the electricity used in the year 2000.Accomplishing this goal will lead to increases of $947,992,100 in economic output, $290,927,800 in wages, $53,499,850 in business income, and 9,350 new jobs.For more information on how Natural Capitalism Solutions can help your community set and achieve similar goals, contact contact us.

Economic Development Through Energy Efficiency
Increasing the efficiency with which Fairbanks meets its electricity needs will create jobs, increase business incomes, and provide overall economic development for the community.

Directed toward efficiency, each investment of $25,000,000 could eliminate the need for as much as 24MW of generating capacity.

For more information on how Natural Capitalism Solutions can help your community set and achieve similar goals contact us.

The United States—indeed, the global community—is at a crossroads. We have a choice between two futures.

Marc Feder/ Solutions

The first is business as usual. In an effort to continue economic growth in the conventional sense (growing Gross Domestic Product with little concern for distribution of wealth), we exacerbate all of the problems that GDP growth is increasingly causing. We fail to recognize that such growth in the developed countries is not improving human well-being. We fail to recognize that distributing our wealth more fairly would actually improve overall well-being. We do not address the growing climate and other environmental problems and continue to damage the ecological life-support systems on which we all depend, particularly the poor. We fail to anticipate and deal with the constraints inherent in our dependence on finite resources such as fossil fuels. It is a future that is not sustainable and also not desirable to the vast majority of humans.

The second future is much brighter: Extreme poverty is eradicated. Our energy economy in the United States and worldwide shifts to clean, renewable resources. Ecological design becomes business as usual, and humankind finally accepts its role as an integral participant in and steward of the environmental systems upon which true prosperity depends.

In short, we have a choice to become victims of the future or its architects. Read more ›

What were the Gulf States like before the introduction of oil refineries? Before offshore drilling? Not all of the Gulf of Mexico is destined to become a dead zone. Not all shorelines along the Gulf states — along with the air, itself — will be off limits to life and tourism. Life will move forward. However, what is different here is that this catastrophic environmental disaster marks a watershed in human history.

Why? There is not much slack left in the human timeline. We have a small window of opportunity in which to imagine a world without oil and then create it.

A student interview with Hunter Lovins North Carolina State’s College of Innovation Management Studies (CIMS). Recorded at The Angus Barn in Raleigh, NC this 2010 Spring Conference highlights the many challenges and opportunities for sustainable, profitable, business solutions to an increasingly larger economic and environmental dilemma.

Utilities and other large-scale energy providers with significant percentages of coal in their generation portfolios can profitably transition toward more flexible and less capital intensive efficiency and renewables technologies using a business approach outlined in a new economic study completed by Natural Capitalism Solutions. This report provides an economic case study in energy financing.

For more information on how Natural Capitalism Solutions can analyze alternatives to your local coal plant contact us.

This paper was also expanded and adopted for a global audience in July 2010 (read more here).

In November 2008, Hunter Lovins was engaged by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to write a paper on sustainable production for Asia. The paper addresses how resource-efficient and low carbon manufacturing lifts people out of poverty. Hunter and Emily Evans presented the paper at the October 2009 U.N. sponsored, International Green Industry Conference in Asia, in Manila, Philippines. Emily Evans led the project and associate Catherine Greener helped author. Several interns and other staff also provided research and editing support.

In preparation for the final presentation in Manila, Hunter and Emily travelled to the United Nations headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand in March 2009 to present the first formal draft of the paper’s outline. The audience included various departments within the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, international research and academic institutions, and various Asian ministers. The outline was very well received and the Natural Capitalism group began writing the paper in mid-spring.

Using the feedback from the conference, the principles of Natural Capitalism, and Natural Capitalism’s roadmap for sustainable production, the commissioned paper provides Asian businesses with the tools necessary to shift their operations toward more sustainable modes of production. Once these challenges are met, industry will flourish, helping communities address chronic poverty.
Table of Contents Read more ›